unstoppable
by TheFicusWithSuperpowers
Summary: In the middle of the battle against the Dred Doctors, Elizabeth Hale finds herself on both sides, the bad and the good, and between two wolves, one that she has been in love with for a while and one that she cannot stay away from. One thing is for sure: she would die for both of them.
1. E H

She looks back and forth, music ringing loudly in her ears. Stiles and Scott are talking about something and Liam is chained to a tree.

They must be talking about the senior year. It starts tomorrow. Something will happen. Things always happen. And they were never alone, they, the pack: Scott McCall, the True Alpha, Stiles Stilinski, ex-Nogitsune, Lydia Martin, a Banshee, Malia Tate, a werecoyote, Kira Yukimura, a Kitsune, her, Elizabeth Hale, just another Beta, and Liam Dunbar, the baby Beta-wolf. Sometime ago, there were Allison Argent, Derek and even Cora Hale, her cousins, after Cora had been revealed alive, Isaac Lahey and so on. In three years, since Scott became a werewolf, so many things happened: she revealed herself to the boys, then the Peter chapter, the Alpha pack, the whole Nogitsune madness, the Deadpool...

It's Beacon Hills, all the bad things happen here!

''Hey, think it's enough?" Stiles asks firstly Scott, who doesn't give a very conclusive answer, then Elizabeth. While she thinks, balancing the possibilities and realizing how much she enjoys the situation, Liam screams:

"Yes!"

"No", she eventually answers.

Stiles turns to the tree-chained Beta. "We are trying to have an adult conversation over here". That was his way of accepting my answer.

"You're only two years older than me." This makes her take her headphones off and cut Imagine Dragons in the middle of their song. Yes, they all are older. She is older too... two years. Crap! She loses herself between thoughts. The baby Beta-wolf annoyingly occupies some of them. It's exhausting sometimes. She comes back to the Earth only when the guys get to Liam.

"After the last full moon?" Scott asks him. They are talking about Liam's frequent loss of control during full moons.

He is trying to explain it. ''It was slip-up".

Stiles laughs. "Slip-up? A dozen calls to the Sheriff's Department about a monstrous dog-boy running around the streets of Beacon Hills naked. That's a slip-up?"

Elizabeth almost laughs... up until she hears the last part. That is bad. "Naked?"

Scott is equally surprised and confused. "Why were you naked?"

"You weren't completely naked, right?" Elizabeth continues.

Liam sighs. "It was really hot out that night, okay? Let me go."

She quickly turns around, on her calves, to Stiles. "Don't. Or I bite you. And I am not an Alpha, thus all your are going to feel is pain. A lot of," she tells him and smiles largely to show him her sharp teeth.

Scott eventually unchains him. Liam thanks him, then looks to his hands. Elizabeth smells blood, his blood, and he probably figures that out, knowing her really good sense of smell, but she doesn't say. She knows they need to get going, to get Malia, then get to high-school on time.

They get into the car, Stiles driving, Scott next to him, and Liam and Elizabeth in the back. They drive for a while after which the baby Beta-wolf starts asking questions. I.E.D., A.D.H.D. or whatever what he has is called can be annoying at times. "So, is it a party?" He asks.

"No, it is not party," she answers. It is a thing for seniors. It is the only signature they leave to the Beacon Hills High School. Right there, in the library, the whole thing is meant to be special.

"Then what exactly is at midnight?"

"Your bedtime," Stiles utters bored.

Elizabeth bursts into laughter. It looks as though as she's the only one that finds it funny, but... Looking at Liam, she says: "Sorry, baby wolf."

He eyes her unamused. "Do not call me that, Liz. The deal was that you do no call me 'baby wolf' and I don't call you 'Liz', Liz, remember?"

"Sorry".

Then the Jeep stops. Actually, it screams in great pains, releasing weird sounds, then stops. It's Stiles' Jeep, after all. "I think it's electrical," Stiles says then goes with Scott to check the engine.

Meanwhile Liam shoves his headphones into his ears and puts some music on. Elizabeth is left looking at him. She is happy that he has found an anchor, that music of his. She used music too before. Edith Piaf or Beethoven, good stuff, used to bring her back to who she was. Ever since the whole Deadpool adventure, since she's turned to like alternative rock bands, it stopped working.

But she might have found another one without knowing.

She hears a thunder and it sends shivers down her spine. She looks in the back of the car. A lightning hits a few meters from them. Liam sees it too.

"Guys," she calls for Stiles and Scott. They only ask her and Liam to wait a bit more. A few seconds a lightning hits again, inches on their left. Mentally, they freak out. But they are too shocked to react physically. After the thunder, the Jeep starts working again. They go fast. Elizabeth sighs relieved. She has never liked thunders or lightnings. She likes rain though. It is refreshing, it is calming, it is almost like anchor. But no, that isn't hers.

In twenty minutes, they reach Malia, who after hugging her dad, comes to Stiles, shoving her lips to his before he could finish his sentence: "Sorry that we're late-".

Elizabeth mutters to herself, but easily audible: "And I always shipped you with my cousin".

Scott turns to her. "Cora?"

She shakes her head, replying: "Derek". Scott is left a bit confused, then turns his head back to the happy couple. They are just ending their kiss.

Liam stands, moves forward and says to Malia: "I am sorry too, you know." The werecoyote looks unamused by the joke or whatever that is. Elizabeth, on the other hand, grabs Liam by the arm and pulls him back on the seat. Then she puts her lips on his, like it is the most usual thing to do. It somehow is. It is worth it and incredible, better than both can think. The kiss is powerful and it wakes up something in Elizabeth, a connection to who she is, to who the boy that always answers her kisses, to all the guys she names her friends.

Like an anchor. Him.

When they break, Mr. Tate, Malia's father, says something about a gun, something the two from the back seat don't quite understand.

* * *

They see Scott in the distance, fighting a big guy. Kira and somebody else, a werewolf, are down. Elizabeth roars, turning her fingernails to claws. ' _Nobody hurts my family. Nobody_ _hurts my friends. You're dead, big guy.'_ But before she can get between the two, the big guy gets Scott, impaling him in the chest with his neon-glowing claws. And it looks just like he is sucking like out of the Alpha. Just like Deputy Parrish told Sheriff Stilinski and Mrs. McCall at the hospital, discussion she and Liam have overheard. The red Alpha glow in Scott's eyes is disappearing... Or not. After a second it comes back, more powerful and brighter than ever. Scott McCall is just about to show the real power he has got.

He easily breaks two of that guy's claws. "You can stay and I will break something else. Or you can run".

The guy looks at Stiles, who says he would run, then at others, then at her. She nods. ' _Run, dude!'_

He goes away.

They have dropped Liam in town. He wishes he could come, but it is a thing for seniors.

The pack enters the high school only to be scolded by Lydia. "Where have you been?" One of them sighs, but it doesn't really matter who. It is a relieved sigh, 'cause they are seniors, 'cause they have survived the Argents, the Alpha pack, the Nogitsune, the Deadpool up until now, 'cause they have reached the school tonight.

In the library, they are supposed to write their initials on a shelf. The first one is Stiles. Whether he writes S.S, from 'Stiles Stilinski, or his real name, Elizabeth cannot know. She puts the marker in her left hand, as she is left-handed, just like Lydia, and thinks how to calligraphicly write an 'E' and a 'H'. _Elizabeth Hale._ She struggles not to care about her ugly handwriting, just writes her initials and steps back, giving Lydia the marker. Elizabeth can't help but feel a little bit jealous that the only signature she leaves to the Beacon Hills High School is ugly and that everybody else's looks cool.

Scott, after signing for himself, notes 'A.A.'. _Allison Argent._ Elizabeth's eyes get teary. But she holds them. Allison would never want any of them not to pass over her death. "She would have been with us," Stiles says with his head a bit lowered.

Lydia sighs thinking about her deceased best-friend. "She still is," is all she utters.

Elizabeth adds: "She will always be."

* * *

 _-sometime later-_

Lydia looks at the ceiling. She can only mutter that her friends are going to die. Aiden, who is supposed to be dead, is questioning her. "Lydia, what do you know?" He asks. She looks at him and realizes it cannot be. The mirage of Aiden dissolves. Instead, Dr. Valack appears. He asks about each of her friends, but she is trying to protect their memory.

She sees how Liam and Scott fought, how Mrs. McCall and Sheriff Stilinski had a fight too, how Kira left, how Deputy Parrish stood in the middle of the fire, his eyes glowing murderously, how the Desert Wolf attacked Malia, her daughter, how Stiles is laying unconscious, barely breathing if not at all, in the wreck of his Jeep, and Elizabeth falling off a building to her death.


	2. reality

Elizabeth opens her locker and takes two-three books and notebooks that she might need for the next class. AP Biology. No, she is not going to that class. Biology is stupid, disgusting and boring. Too much to study, whole textbooks. It really isn't a pleasure, at least to her. Scott, on the other hand, wants to become a vet, work as Deaton the Second. Running through the halls to escape before the bell rings, she sees Lydia next to a girl. The girl seems to be terrorised by something on the spot. Elizabeth approaches them. "Hey, Lydia, who is she?"

Lydia forces a smile, raising one eyebrow to warn Elizabeth that the girl has a problem. "This... is Tracy."

"Hi. I am Elizabeth." She extends her hand to shake with the girl. But she stays frozen in her little universe of nightmares.

"Are you okay, Tracy?" Both girls ask at the same time, looking at each other. This girl is not okay.

Tracy blinks once or twice, then wakes up from the supposed trance. "Hhm."

Elizabeth looks at her wristwatch. "I have AP Biology and I am not going so I have to run before the bell rings. See you at lunch."

"Ok," Lydia answers, left with the terrorised girl.

The Beta weregirl speeds through the halls. Just a few more meters... Then something catches her eye. She stops, shifting her weight on one leg and with the back against a wall, focusing intensively on what is happening in the classroom.

The baby Beta-wolf.

Mr. Yukimura was trying to begin, except that Liam was still standing, looking around for another seat than the one right in front of him. Elizabeth feels that it has to do with the brunette whose seat is right next to his. She has a square face, small eyes, small nose, small mouth, big forehead big cheeks, big chin. The girl's face is a paradox. However, the reason why Liam doesn't want to sit next to her is other than the fact she wouldn't win a beauty pageant.

The weregirl that stands in the hall watching the scene, Elizabeth, was born with claws. In seventeen years, she over-learnt how to control claws or fangs from appearing when they shouldn't. But now, she can barely hide her were-features. Elizabeth wants to rip the girl's neck off with her teeth. This desire is family inheritance for the Hales. Yeah, she doesn't like Hayden Romero but she has to control herself. She looks at Liam and breathes deeply.

 _In._

 _Out._

 _In._

 _Out._

"Liam, aren't you going to sit down?" Kira's father finally breaks the silence.

"Nope." Liam shakes his head.

"You are not going to stand there the whole class, are you?" Mr. Yukimura adds.

"Maybe?" The corners of Liam's mouth rise in a forced smile.

"The whole semester?"

"Maybe."

The teacher sighs. "Liam, please have a seat." And eventually the baby-wolf sits on that chair, next to Hayden Romero, his old (fourth grade) nemesis.

Elizabeth smiles to herself before preparing to get going. She knows that Liam has sensed her presence and has seen her. She turns to get going... but is stopped. "Elizabeth, it is nice to see you. Would you like to assist us today?" Mr. Yukimura says.

She smiles and steps back. 'No, I was just passing by."

"Don't you have now AP Biology with my daughter and Scott?" He asks and for a few seconds Elizabeth hates him.

"Actually, yes, but I wanted to go to the toilet," she lies.

He widens his eyes, totally not buying it. "In the other half of the school?"

She doesn't want to answer anymore. She only says: "I was planning on skipping it."

Mr. Yukimura sighs. "At least you are honest."

Elizabeth smiles then leaves, muttering a "Thank God!" to herself.

* * *

Theo Raeken. When they met him, he said he used to be friends with Scott and Stiles during fourth the grade. She doesn't remember him. She knew Stiles and Scott during fourth grade, she knew a Theo Raeken as well, but not that one. Elizabeth certainly does not want to be as paranoic as Stiles is. She would rather give him a chance. After all, who really remembers fourth grade, besides supposedly Stiles? But here she is, with Stiles and Liam, in the woods, following the new Beta-guy in the night in the woods surrounding Beacon Hills.

"I am not sure about this whole thing, Stiles," she tries to say, but the Stilinski boy is too focused on his plan. She turns to Liam.

Sensing she is eyeing him, he looks up from his phone's screen and nods. "Yeah, I think so too." She sighs, closing her eyes to blink. When she opens them, Liam is gone. Elizabeth looks around.

 _Left._ Nothing.

 _Right._ No Liam.

 _Behind._ Nothing.

 _Forward._ Nope.

 _Up._ Actually impossible. So, it is down. Then, she notices a hole in the ground. The baby Beta-wolf is in the, covered in mud. "Need a hand?" She asks.

"It took you a bit to see me."

"Maybe. Or I wanted you to drop that stupid phone. And do not worry. Mud can sometimes do good to the skin". He laughs and jumps out of there himself. Then they follows Stiles who has departed from them already.

Minutes later, they are in some bushes looking at him standing on a bridge with a white lily in his hand. "Use your smell!" Stiles tells Liam, who is next to him.

"Well, he smells good. It is a nice fragrance." Whole the answer annoys Stiles, Elizabeth can't keep herself from laughing. She puts her hand over her mouth in hopes of not making a sound.

"Use your smell for detecting emotions and feelings, not the flavor of his shampoo!" Stiles adds.

Liam focuses. "He is sad. No, it is more than sadness. What is the word?"

Elizabeth focuses her smell too on the Raeken boy. She easily finds the answer to Liam's question. "Grief."

"Yes," Liam replies, nodding.

"What does this mean?" Stiles wonders. "Maybe it is about his..."

Elizabeth interrupts him. "Stilinski, he is grieving somebody. I am not going to stay here to spy on him, because you think he is the villain of this season of "We Have the Coolest Pack'. I am leaving." For a few seconds, Liam considers going with her. She is right. Dear Lord... when she isn't? But moving, he feels Stiles's hand on his shoulder. He stays.

But the Hale werewolf leaves. She is gone, out of his were-radar too soon. Her presence is gone too soon too. Even her smell is erased from that place. A shiver goes down his spine. It is like a bad feeling, but he knows that Elizabeth Hale is the strongest, the smartest and the most beautiful girl the Beta he has ever heard about.

* * *

She wakes up and sees a dark place. She feels like she is in a death-and-war-world-ii-themed Dexter's lab. Next to her, she is that terrorised girl from the afternoon. Her name is Tracy, if she remembers correctly. She wonders where she is and how did she get there. But before she can stand and search for the answers herself, the girl starts waking up.

Elizabeth hides herself in a closet that she finds open and waits. As Tracy stands, some dark figures approach her. They look like some kind of doctors from World War II. In dark leather clothes and with the great-grandpa of a gas mask on their face, the three-four men talk to her, pinning her down at the same time.

"You are not sleeping, Tracy," one of them utters when he hears her tell herself that it is not real.

 _'It cannot be more real',_ Elizabeth says to herself. Then he takes a syringe full of a brownish liquid and injects it into Tracy's neck. A second after the syringe is empty, Tracy's back arches backwards, her screams turning into roars, her teeth into fangs, her nails into claws, herself into some creature. Horrified, Elizabeth puts her hand over her mouth, afraid to make a sound. _'A syringe that can turn people into werewolves... A syringe that mirrors an Alpha bite. Oh Lord...'_

Tracy passes out. But these dread doctors or whatever they are seem pleased by the result of the injection. "Now, where is the the Hale werewolf?" One of the asks. The start wandering in search of her.

 _'No. No. Please no! '_ One of them opens the closet and greets Elizabeth like he is a friend of hers. No, he is not. Probably, he doesn't even know the term.


	3. dizziness

She is bitting her nails in the was all just a dream. There were no doctors. There was no skull-penetrating machine, no syringe to extract her werewolf venom from her teeth's gums, no leather chains to keep her tied to a stretcher. It was all a dream. Elizabeth is in her bed, at home and nothing bad happens.

It is morning before she knows it. But she is not going to school. Her room is safe. Nobody could pass the lock, not even the hunters when they were hunting the pack down two years ago, not even the Kanima, no mercenary that wanted her head for the seven millions she was worth. In that room she is safe, but alone. No. She would rather be unsafe with her friends, tham safe without them. Life itself is not safe so there is no real use in hiding. She is going to school and it is going to be okay.

* * *

"The inner circle... werewolf...kitsune..." They are talking but she doesn't understand. It is like they do not speak English. Or like she doesn't understand their words, English, anymore. She thinks she might be going crazy, especially after last night's nightmare. But, it is sunny, they are together, all six of them plus Mason, Liam's gay best friend, and nothing can happen.

"Are you okay?" Liam asks her, visibly worried.

She sighs. "I am fine. I couldn't quite sleep last night and feel a little tired. I got home really late."

He raises one eyebrow. She left them early, literally disappeared from there, but got home too late to be able to sleep enough or well. "You were with us. You left first. Where were you after?" Liam tells her, realising something must have happened. She might have been somewhere, possibly with somebody. He is just as curious as annoyed by the thought and the situation.

"Oh, I was. I know," she answered. Her face says otherwise, like she doesn't remember. "I got lost walking back to home."

He sighs. "I do not buy it. You know the woods like the back of your hand. Elizabeth, where were you?"

She lowers her head, thinking. She cannot be that weak to get scared by some nightmares. She would never say something that stupid, something that would uselessly worry him. "Back off, baby wolf! She flashes her golden eyes threateningly. He does back off, still surprised and confused by her behavior. Despite his I.E.D., he can control himself when he knows he must. Her claws have always been much longer anyway.

She enters the classroom together with Liam and Scott. Thank God the AP Biology class has been interrupted. She could not stand it. There was Mr. Yukimura and that girl, Hayden Romero. The other girl... what was her name?... hold Hayden's arm so tight that it is bleeding. "They are coming for all of us," she says before eventually fainting. Scott takes her away fast enough. Elizabeth tries to follow him but, just like she was drunk, she cannot move her body correctly.

 _'It must have been more than just a nightmare.'_ She says to herself.

She can't keep up with Scott, so she stops and turns back, to Liam and... Hayden. And for a second she liked that paradox girl. "You know how to get to the nurse and take care of that?" Liam asks, pointing to her bleeding wrist.

"I think I will be fine," is all she says. Elizabeth needs a lot of will to control the newly-appeared claws. How that she cannot control her body anymore?

Liam turns to the Hale girl. "Are you sure you are okay?" He asks again.

She nods. "I am fine, baby wolf". But she sees him spinning, Lydia and Kira coming to them doing barrel rolls like the Google logo, everything going up and down. This time he is not annoyed by the nickname.

* * *

Liam is going with Mason to talk to Brett, Lydia and Kira are going to the girl's house and Elizabeth is on her way to Deaton. She ends up there half an hour later than she usually would. If only she did not feel sick today... When she tries to enter the room, the mountain ash she finds on the floor stops her.

"I am sorry, Elizabeth, you cannot come in. It is for the best, so our friend here will not be able to run," Dr. Deaton explains.

Elizabeth smiles relieved. She is not in the mood to fight anybody, especially a crazy werewolf. Outside, she takes her phone and dials Liam's number. Elizabeth does not know why. ' _Hello. This is Liam. It seems I can't talk right now, so please leave a message.'_

She can leave one. " _Baby-wolf, how are you doing? I... Baby-wolf... Liam..."_ She hangs before she could say anything more stupid. No, it is not stupid, it is the purest thing she ever...

Her phone rings. For the second time this week, she cuts Imagine Dragons in the middle of their song. It is him. "Hey, how are you doing?" She says calmly.

He roars from the other end of the line. "What the hell, Liz? Now seriously what do you think you are doing?"

"It is nice seeing you worry. I am thankful to know somebody cares about me, especially you, Dunbar." She rests her back against a wall. Unsupported she would fall. Anyway, she is falling. She cannot keep her balance. It won't be long until she is going to lose conscience and succumb to the darkness she has come to be afraid of in less than a day.

"I do not get it. What is happening to you, Elizabeth?"

"I know I sound patethic and weak, I have had a nightmare last night. All of you were dead and some bad guys used me to do bad. They did bad to me."

He sighs. "Elizabeth, it is fine."

"I know. Thank you, Liam. You always enlighten my day. And not only it, you enlighten everything about me. I like that. I like you. Truly, I am in love with you," she utters in a low voice. She can sense he is both surprised and a combination of relieved and happy.

"I know. I too...," he tries to say but is interrupted.

"Do not say that. I know what I need to. If you were next to me, I would kiss you," she replies smiling. She seems to get a bit stronger, the tone of her voice, her body finally listens to her completely.

"We are going to continue this discussion when we see each other, okay?" Elizabeth continues.

He lets out a laugh. "I was thinking the same...". A screech, heardable on both sides, stops him. He goes back to his worried self and starts calling her name. "Elizabeth?" She answers no more. The screech was the sound of her phone screen breaking as it falls on the concrete. She takes it, hanging up, and looks at what hit her. It is that girl... what was her name?... with a tail that makes her look like a Kanima.

"... Kanima," she superhears from inside Deaton's place. It is Scott's voice. But she runs away immediately. If she touched her, Elizabeth would fall down paralysed by its venom, probably just like the the guys inside the place. Trying to focus on the were-abilities she learnt before English, Elizabeth starts running. She needs to stop that Kanima before it hurts anybody.

She arrives at the Police Department at the same time with Lydia and Kira. "What are you doing here?" She asks them.

"Tracy is on a killing spree of the people she knows and my mother is on that list. What about you?" Lydia explains then asks.

Elizabeth sighs. "I followed the same girl, who turned out to be a Kanima, from Deaton's to this place." She speaks rather calmly.

"Oh, God," Lydia says. Then the three enter the building. Nothing happened yet, thank God. But all deputies are down, paralysed by the venom. Sheriff Stilinski goes down too. Holy cow! The Kanima really is after Mrs. Martin. Kira draws her sword and attacks it. Lydia tries to take her mother away. But Elizabeth doesn't move. She cannot. The Liam-effect is waving off. Without the constant presence of her anchor and source of power, she is so she needs to fight. She forces her feet to move. Kira's down.

 _'Move, Liz Useless Hale!'_ She moves and draws her claws, bringing her usual golden back to her eyes. But it feels just like something pierces her ocular globes. _'Last night couldn't have been nothing.'_ Elizabeth closes her eyes and attacks the Kanima blindly, following her scent, the vibrations of all her moves. She scratches her back, but can't do much without her eyes. And the venom touches her. She is down. The Kanima is going to kill everybody. Lydia is down, stabbed in the stomach by the creature. Or not. Kira stands and shows the real Kitsune power. Her eyes glow a beautiful orange and a plasma-like armor appears around her. She cuts the Kanima's tail and Tracy falls. She finally remembers. Her name is Tracy.

She was there too last night. They injected something into her neck, turning her into that mess of a were-thing. With tail or not, the girl is still strong. She takes Kira down then takes Mrs. Martin to the basement. _'I am useless. What is happening to me?'_ Elizabeth says to herself. _'Lydia is losing blood. She might die. Scott, Stiles, Deaton, they are stuck by the same venom as me and_ _the Sheriff. Kira has to keep Lydia from bleeding out. And Liam is who knows where... He should be here. I want him here. I...'_

Her eyes go back to golden. She feels the same pain as minutes before, but she does not care. Elizabeth Fantastic Hale is going to protect her friends. She wins. She beats the venom and moves her fingers, her hand, her legs, her body. Malia enters the place. She is told to go to the basement and runs there. Elizabeth rises and tries to follow her. She is still slow. When she gets to the basement, Malia has already woken Tracy up. "It is real. It is not a dream," the werecoyote repeats to the ex-Kanima girl. But then a hand pins her head to a wall. Another injects something into Tracy's neck, who drops dead, spilling mercury out of her mouth.

 _'It is them. The Dread Doctors. I knew they were coming. Tracy said it too. We are going to die. Please no...'_ Elizabeth silently screams.

The Dread Doctors leave, passing next to her. One pats her shoulder, "Hello, Elizabeth!" She runs, as they disappear in the shadows. She has faded in the darkness just like them. She is gone, again. _'Hello, Elizabeth!'_


	4. things

Malia's statement about some weird guys, strong guys, who killed Tracy is not really believable. All they know is that the girl is dead. Then Kira asks : "Where is Eliza? She went to the basement and it seems she hasn't come back."

"She never got to me," Malia says.

Scott widens his eyes. "She could've have left, I guess." It is too much to process for him: Lydia not dying, Mrs. Martin having seen too much, Tracy's dead body, an agent having heard too much, Tracy's tail which is on the freaking floor and a gone friend.

Malia snorts angered. "I barely know her, for a year or so. And I've figured out that she is not the kind to let us down in any way. You seemingly haven't." Then she bursts out of the place.

"She is right," Stiles says patting his friend's shoulder. "We both know her. We have both seen Elizabeth Hale put herself between you and a sword, who nearly cut her in half. She lost a kidney, half of her liver and we do not know the full story. For you. She doesn't have the habit of running away."

Scott lowers his head. "What are we going to do?"

"Figure it out. By the way, on the hall to the basement, I have found her phone. We shouldn't tell Liam until we know for sure who took her," Stiles adds.

* * *

The Bestiary is a big, big, big book. Stiles is ready to let his head down on the desk and succumb to sleep. But something beeps in his bag. It is her phone. On the screen, with no scratch on it, he can see who is calling, but can't do anything. After the tone, a message :

"Hey, where are you? I have finished inspecting the woods with Brett and Mason. Scott is at the hospital with Lydia. I am going there too. If you come we need to talk, not only about the new adventures of the Scooby gang, but also about, you know, us."

Stiles puts the phone back into the bag. " What a crappy situation," he adds. Then he fades to sleep.

* * *

She wakes up seeing a familiar face. Actually two. Donovan is the delinquent boy that she has seen several times at Sheriff's Department. And then there is Theo. "Sooner or later, physical pain becomes manageable. The real pain is emotional. That is the kind of pain that lasts," Theo, with an amused look on his face, tells Donovan.

"Do not listen to him," she tries to say but she cannot even control her vocal cords. What comes out in fact is a patethic screech.

"If you want to cause him devastating pain, do not go after him, go after someone he loves." She knows what they are talking about. She knows it is all about the Stilinskis. She has heard Donovan threaten the Sheriff and knows that Stiles is nr. 1 'No Theo in the Pack' preacher. Theo knows that too. Stiles is the target now. Theo smiles then moves, coming closer to the stretcher she is on. "Hello, Elizabeth."

"Son of a b-," she starts but is interrupted.

"Shh, it is not beautiful for a lady to talk like this," he says. His smirk grows. He could be a handsome guy, if he weren't evil.

"Who the hell are you?"

"I bet you would like to know. I do not tell my secrets so easily," he answers, coming closer to her, whispering to her ear.

She sighs. "How can I make you speak?" The tension is being built up, ringing loudly in her ears.

"Nope, sweetie," he adds, putting his hands over her head like he is about to crush it. "I can kill you now and have one less person to take care of, or I can let you live and you will probably be around for a long time." His hands free her head, only to draw claws at the end of each finger. His long dark brown claws are scratching her neck, as he puts his hands around it. "You are a born werewolf, a Hale, the perfection of this world, Alpha or not. You are not going to end as a failure. Tracy, yes, this guy, I might kill him myself sometime later; there is another guy called Lucas, a total freak, he's already failed."

"I do not understand what you are talking about," she says.

"You will soon see. I think. I do not know for sure," he continues, the smirk still on his face and his hands tightening around her neck.

"Why?"

He laughs. "Too my reasons. Do not get me wrong. I think you are cute and I wouldn't want to kill you under normal circumstances, but if you are dead, I can take your place in the pack."

"Why do you hate Scott or Stiles or everybody so much? Anyway, you can't kill me. My Alpha, Scott, would sense it."

Theo snorts. "I do not care. But they would miss you, especially that dwarf Liam, 'cause you two like each other or something like that. They wouldn't be able to focus when the Doctors will attack them. Perfect. I should really kill you." He closes his hands, claws on, on her neck and Elizabeth closes her eyes preparing for the end, but it doesn't come. He sighs, just as she opens her eyes. However, his hands are still there. With a very firm movement of his fingers, he frees her neck, then he turns to the chains that tie her to the stretcher; he cuts them too. She is free? She rises cautiously and looks directly at him. He looks back into her luminous eyes. Something makes her move, something makes him move as well. And it's sinful and it's sweet. She won't ever know why it's happening; she doesn't feel anything and he doesn't either. But things happen because the Earth is round and because the grass is green. They kiss. Who cares Donovan is in the same room? He jumps on the stretcher and continues the 'lips-thing'. His hands move on her back, going down to her legs. She puts one of her hands of his neck, and, for a second, she considers choking him right there, which she eventually doesn't do; the other one moves on his chest.

He laughs, but continues, taking off his shirt. She does the same with her top and her jeans, exposing a big scar across her stomach. "Cool scar," Theo says pointing to it. "How did you get it?"

She sighs bored, for two reasons: it's a story that she's repeated so many times this past year, and, secondly, this talking is interrupting something. "I put myself between Scott and a Japanese spirit, who had a really sharp sword. Three weeks in ICU after a 16 hour surgery in which they have taken a third of my organs out. That or my life, I was lucky." He seems surprised and fights hard on the inside to process that. Elizabeth continues: "Anything physical can start a bleeding, you know, but who cares?"

Theo kisses her. "I do not."

"Good." He keeps his eyes on her scar, one of his hands touching it to see if it is as real as it smirk reappears on his face. He is intrigued because she is not afraid despite the fact that he can kill her right now. "For someone with half of the organs inside, you do have bold opinions. And you talk a lot."

She looks at him amused. "Kiss me to stop me." That is what he does. He kisses her and continues. His hand moves slowly over the skin, searching, studying, enjoying every inch of it. It is powerful, like only werewolves know to do. In the middle of it, their eyes start glowing Beta golden and Omega yellow. And he has just come up with a new plan, a great new plan that includes pretty much this girl. He'll have to talk to the Doctors to see how to make her cooperate wholeheartedly. But he thinks that it shall be clarify, nothing is real. And at the end of it, she wishes she was killed. She regrets because of a promise to the other boy, the only one she has ever truly loved. _Him._ But it was her life or that. To clarify, it shouldn't have been real.


	5. scars

She hears him talk to the Doctors. It is about a book, one called 'The Dread Doctors'. ' _That is their name.'_ She also hears a name. ' _Valack'_. That is the three eyed man she met when they had taken Peter to his cell; at Eichen's. Then it all comes together. ' _Dread Doctors, Tracy a werewolf - Kanima, Donovan a wendigo - something, three eyes."_ Valack has a connection with them. Did they give him the third ocular globe? It is all too crazy.

"They are going there," Theo says. And Elizabeth knows he is talking about her friends and about Eichen House. And the Doctors will be going after them.

* * *

Stiles sees himself in front of the gate. It has been over a year since his time there, but he still gets goosebumps. "Have you thought of anything? About Liz?" Scott asks, trying to make him less uncomfortable about the situation. It doesn't really work.

"One thing that we know for sure is that they took her. Malia saw them then and we saw them at that club," he replies sighing. He tries to make his hand stop shivering. Scott thinks it is about Eichen House, but it isn't. It is about what happened a few hours before: Donovan. Stiles killed him, then his body disappeared.

"That is why we have come here. Valack can give us answers," the Alpha adds with gus head lowered. "At least some of them."

"I haven't seen Liam today. Have you told him that she has gone missing yet?" Stiles frowns as he speaks. During the day, he has been curious over the Beta's deeds, out of the spotlight.

Scott sighs, an innocent but guilty smile appearing on his face. "I had to. I saw him in the morning. He asked about her. I tried to tell him that I do not know anything. But he realized I was lying."

Stiles's eyes close as he tries to think. "Scott. He is a werewolf with I.E.D. and strong opinions. In this state he can kill even you."

Scott, puppy-faced, bits his lower lip. "I know. But she taught him to recognize lies. And you know I am not a good liar."

"You know what?" Stiles adds. "We better go in and ask Valack and figure out what the hell is going on." They join the girls and went in. Stiles knows he could make a sarcastic joke or two about the situation. He is not in the mood for that.

* * *

Elizabeth looks up when she hears a scream. She can recognize it from thousands. _Banshee scream._ And not just a Banshee scream. _Lydia's._ She tries to move but sees she is tied there. It is like a cell. It is a cell. It is all they have for her. Or maybe somebody asked them to behave nicely to her. No. Theo is just as bad as any of the Doctors. And they are much worse than the whole Argent family and Jackson as the Kanima and the Alpha pack and all the assassins together. Everything she and Scott, Stiles, Liam and the others have been through seem like nothing. It is this adventure that will challenge everything they are and everything they know. Everything they have be through are leading them to a moment, coming soon, in which only if they are strong enough they will survive. And she knows Theo is in fact on the bad guys' side. But cannot currently tell anybody. Elizabeth comes back from the land of her thoughts when she senses a presence around her. _His presence._

"Thinking about me?" Theo says.

She offers him a sweet smile. It kills her how easily she can pretend, if she does it at all. "Actually yes. What have you been doing?"

He sighs. "I made up another evil plan to conquer the world."

She frowns. "Okay. I just stayed here."

Theo comes closer, taking her hand in his. "I am not as much of a bad guy as you think."

Her eyes look directly into his. "Well, everybody has his reasons. Like me. Now." Then she forces her lips on his. It doesn't feel like a kiss. It kind of is. But at least for her, it isn't. When she passionately kisses, she has the face and the lips of a certain boy in her mind. And it is not him at all. When she catches her breath, she finally smells it. "You smell of coyote, of Malia."

He grins. "Yeah. She nearly killed me."

Elizabeth raises one eyebrow. "What have the two of you got to do with each other?"

Theo's glare turns visibly annoyed. "I gave her driving lessons. She stopped in the middle of the road and then I had to take her from there before a car ran over her."

Elizabeth forces a weird smile. The corners of her mouth raise awkwardly. "Great. You are a life-saver."

Theo stands and starts to depart. Elizabeth has only one chance and what else can she lose? "Are you leaving so soon? I have been stuck here all day alone and bored."

He sighs, grinning. "I really do not have time now. I just wanted to see whether you have killed yourself or not. You are pretty much alive, so bye!" Elizabeth steps forward before being stopped by some chains that tie her to that corner of her cell. It is like she is in jail. "By the way, the dwarf is searching for you. He is running through the whole town," Theo adds amused. "I understand him. It is the thing he does for you, the girl he likes. It is the thing anybody would do for the loved ones. Even I. But what about you?"

Elizabeth clenches her fists. ' _Liam...'_ All she thinks about is the beautiful lie she can tell. The lie doesn't seem fake, false, untrue. But truer, real, incredible is what she has for Liam. She sighs and smiles. She goes closer and kisses him. And this kiss really works. The face in her mind isn't his, though. "I too, for him," she whispers to his ear as she breaks from the kiss. A tear goes down her face and she falls. She lays down in pains. Her T-shirt is bloodstained. She is bleeding from her stomach, from the scar that has just been reopened. Theo's eyes are sparkling, Beta golden. His claws are bloody. In less than a second, his claws cut through what was left of flesh there. Then he turns around. He is still grinning. Before he leaves, Theo adds to an already unconscious Elizabeth "The doctors will see you tonight, Liz".


	6. hopes

He is back. And he smells of werecoyote again. _Malia._ And not only of werecoyote, but also human, kitsune, banshee and True Alpha werewolf. He has been with them today, Elizabeth can feel it. He is getting under their skin, ready to stab them in the back. But out of all of them, Malia, the cousin she had never really got along with very well, is in the biggest danger, because Theo, whoever he really is, has his eyes on her.

Elizabeth knows she is not going to allow anything to happen to them back. Or at least she is going to try not to allow that. Ever since hours ago, when the Doctors pierced the back of her head with a drill, injected a yellow-green liquid into her spinal cord, electrocuted her multiple times, re-organized the organs in her body, strengthened her skeleton through titanium and iron injections, and many more Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King-inspired things, she has not felt like herself. She can barely control what her body does. That may be because the Doctors have more control over it now.

"Theo," she pathetically calls his name from the stretcher she is on.

He gives her a simple smile, clearly amused. "Hello, Elizabeth." That sentence rings in her ears like the worst nightmare she has ever had. That is what one of the Doctors first said to her when she was first taken. Later, when they took her again, they repeated it. And now he is saying it. Theo knows it makes her heart race. Yes, he, on purpose, mentally tortures her. "I talked to the Doctors," he continues, his grin fading slowly, slowly, with each second. Then he leans over her stretcher-tied body, his hand moving over her body. "I feel bad for you, I think. Or sorry, at least. But listen here, Hale, when you go back, if you dare tell, I will rip your throat off with my teeth."

She frowns. "Except from the... fact that is... a Hale saying, passed... down from generation to generation,.. and not a random threat, am... I going... to be... sent back?" She had to pause each two words to breath. During the hours of terror, they must have touched a lung, if not both. Her breathing can hardly steady itself.

Theo only smirks and departs. She wishes she could stop him and have him talk to her a bit more, but he is different. The Theo that is involved with the Doctors is not the same as the Theo that she had known from childhood, not the same as Theo who she made love with a few days ago. He is close, then far away. He is Theo, the not him anymore. Elizabeth sighs. She knows it. She wants him to be in fact a good guy and not the villain of the story. But he is a bad guy and, one way or another, she is going to protect her friends, even if it means killing him. Yes, she might have grown a bit too close to that guy.

In the pale light of the place, she sees his shadow walking away. But when his presence disappears completely, she has already faded to darkness. Whatever is happening, because of their deeds to her, it is bad. There is no need of a were-super sense to figure that out.

* * *

The light is blinding. Elizabeth has not seen the sun in nearly a week. She needs to wear sunglasses, if not for the light, at least to hide her eyes. She cannot turn them back from the Omega yellow anyway. _Omega eyes forever..._ But the sun is not the brightest thing there. She is at Beacon Hills High School and has just caught the gym class of her Baby-Wolf. He throws the ball like his life depends on that. She senses his cocktail of anger, irritation, I.E.D. and amusement. But he is enjoying it. Elizabeth knows that too. Liam is the kind of guy that would probably choose lacrosse over a girl. She would never be able to know that for sure.

At the end of all of this, somebody will die. And it is either her and/or her friends, either the Doctors and, most probably, Theo. Scott would be merciful and spare him, but everybody else wouldn't, including her, despite everything she has recently felt. Elizabeth feels that Scott accepts him because he finds resemblance between Theo and the guy from fourth grade and also feels she accepts him because she has seen all his sides. And in this whole battle, she will need an anchor. Hopefully, she has chosen hers well. Elizabeth will need to regain the control over her body, control taken away by those bloody doctors, and try not to lose her identity, who she is and who her friends are.

Behind Liam is Hayden training too. She is kicking a ball like her life depends on it too. The net is dead anyway, as the strength of each kick seems supernatural. No, Hayden cannot be like them. She stinks of being human. She and Baby-Wolf are not different. They are pretty much the same, the kick or throw a ball with the same cocktail of anger, irritation, amusement and passion. Then it crosses her mind, such a dangerous thought for her emotional stability: _' They would fit together.'_ Elizabeth sighs and smile saddened to herself. Sad smiles are ironic. _'He better move on. I am already dead. And I better move on too. But I freakin' love him and he will never really be able to understand and know and see that. I better move on. My next lover might be Death itself, with its black cape and scythe in the right hand. '_

Loudly, she only calls him by the nickname she gave him when they have first met: "Baby Wolf."

And it is like he hears her or something like that, as he turns to the direction the sound came from. But she has made herself unseen already. "Liz," he answers and lowers his head. A shiver goes down his spine like a knife stabbing him from behind. He could not find her, despite how much he has searched for her these days. It gives him goosebumps. But Liam cannot let her down and give up.

 _'She is still alive'_ is all he can think.

Then a guy comes screaming to the field asking for an inhaler. A jolt hits him from behind as he realizes it is about Scott. He is a werewolf and did not have an asthma attack since before being turned. But it might be because of the book. Liam has not read it yet. He still does not know much about these weird Doctors that cause everybody so many problems. Hopefully, he is not going to learn some things, especially about the connection between _Liz_ and them. He runs, taking an inhaler, to the class Scott is in. Liam puts it into his hand, but Scott is still unresponsible. He is dreaming- no, he is having a flashback. It is a hidden memory that comes back to surface slowly. It is intense and takes over even the strongest, including a True Alpha like Scott McCall.

Liam glows his Beta golden eyes and calls Scott again, waking him up this time. After the Alpha thanks him, Liam adds: "I think I saw Liz."

Scott looks at him perplexed and surprised. "What? How?"

Liam smiles happily. "I saw her. She is for sure alive. I have felt her presence. She seems somehow changed, like some things happened to her, but she is back, Scott." What glows now in Liam' s eyes is hope. And it glows powerfully and incredibly beautiful.

* * *

It was just like the Doctor was sucking life and power out of Scott. Letting him down, Scott has again an asthma attack, but reaching for his inhaler, the Doctor crushes it. They are serious. They will not stop up until everybody is dead, including Scott. Closing his eyes, the werewolf swallows hard. It might be the end. But a final blow from the Dread Doctor does not come. Looking up, he sees that somebody is shielding him, fighting with the bad guy. And he does not believe his eyes. "Elizabeth...," he mutters baffled. "Liam was right."

She turns to him and smiles. But her eyes confused him; they are glowing Omega yellow. _' How come she is an Omega? Something is not right.'_

Back into her fight _,_ she roars at the enemy, trying to cut him with her claws. It is useless, he is too fast. She jumps at his neck and when he block her she crawls on his arm, hopping on his back and sticks her claws into his mask, scratching it, then bites the inch of skin she sees at the edge of its mask and of the metal armor-like cloth he wears. It visibly hurts him and he throws her away, at the other end of the hall.

Then the elevator' s doors open and Malia comes into the hall, trying to fight the Doctor. But when Scott looks after Elizabeth, she is nowhere to be seen. They escape into the elevator, as Mrs. McCall shoves a syring in her son' s leg. It would help him with the attack. "We should have not read the book," Scott says as they all sigh relieved. They have escaped, for now at least.

Malia turns to him, slightly unamused by the fact. "Who was there before I arrived? I have felt a presence and had heard a roar. Also, I do not believe that with your asthma attack you could have scratched his mask so badly, Alpha or not," she replied, frowning. Malia somehow guesses the answer. She knows her cousin too, but is not sure after her disappearance of a week.

Scott looks at her and, surprised himself by the whole thing, answers: "It was Elizabeth. She is back. But she is changed."

Melissa McCall sighs and stands. She fixes her the wrinkles of her scrubs and twists her hair up with hair pin as she speaks the biggest truth of the day: "Which one of all of us is not, sweetie?"


	7. trust

Hayden hits the wheel annoyed. Her car is dead. And three silhouettes are coming out of the dark of the night. They were big, taller than any human can be, massive, with dark, black or maroon, clothes on and with masks over their whole heads. These guys must be Stanley Kubrick's movies-inspired. She tries the engine again, but it does not work. Then the radio of the car turns on by itself. "Your condition is improving." Hayden has no idea what that means and does not even want to know. Turning to the door, she finds it locked. They are in control of her car now. There is no exit. All doors are locked. And they are coming. She can see that clearly through windshield. They are coming, slowly, step by step, bringing her terror to a whole new level.

Then another silhouette, much smaller, much shorter, simple, but fast, appears out of nowhere. From where she is, Hayden cannot see who that person is. But he or she attacks them fearlessly. And from the distance, its eyes glow a beautiful yellow. _'Just like Liam's eyes glowed,'_ Hayden notes. Then she turns her back and sees him, Liam, who she punched minutes before, after he had told her about stupid theories of Dread Doctors and werewolves, theories that have just started to sound real, and showed her his real appearence. He breaks the glass of that back windshield.

"Run" is all he tells Hayden, helping her out of the car.

While she starts departing, he stops and looks behind. When he sees her, Liam blocks instantly. He sees her fighting with the Doctors, alive and prepared and stronger than ever. That is the Elizabeth he knows. And for a second he considers jumping into the battle to help her, but then he realizes she does not need that "Run, Baby Wolf," Elizabeth screams to him. "I can take care of them." She gives him a confident smile and turns her attention back at the villains. Her hand is fast enough to scratch the cloth one of the Doctors and exhibit a blue, pale, rotten skin.

 _'How old are this guys, anyway?'_ she thinks, then looks back and, when Liam is out of sight, she stops. "Following the orders, sir," she tells one of them. "I apologize for the cut, but what he sees needs to be real, what any of them sees."

The Doctors, the same one who terrifies her dreams with the _'Hello, Elizabeth'_ line, nods to her. He breathes in, breathes out slowly, then speaks: "Good girl. Follow them. We need that girl, the one of the few that have not failed." She nods to them and runs in the direction Hayden and Liam ran too. Elizabeth only needs to find them and the rest and will follow the plan. The Doctors will also make an appearance and she needs to prepare everything for that. They make themselves unseen too, into the dead of the night.

* * *

She knocks on the door and is answered by Stiles and Liam. The former one snorts surprised at her sudden arrival, but Liam invites her in. The three go to upstairs, to Scott's room. "Where have you been all this time?" Stiles asks as they climb up the stairs. "No phone call, no email, no letter, you could have at least sent an owl to announce you had to go to who-knows-where for a week or two."

Elizabeth rolls her eyes. "I am here now. I know I disappeared out of sudden. The thing is I saw those three lunatics killing the Kanima-girl and tried to follow them. Before they could performa a surgery on me too, I ran. It took me sometime to figure the way back to the High School."

Stiles lowers his head and sighs in disbelief. _'That is too convenient.'_

"She has much to explain, yes, Stiles, but right now these nutjobs are coming for Hayden," Liam says, visibly worried about the other girl and a bit annoyed by the total unimportant discussion. Under normal circumstances, the Baby-Wolf so interested into protecting another girl would break Elizabeth's heart. Under normal circumstances.

Eventually, Stiles gives up. Then he takes from his pocket a phone and hands it to Elizabeth. "Here. I found it there."

Elizabeth frowns when she sees the phone, a small Samsung, like the one she has. That phone is not hers. Her real phone is in her pocket, with its screen broken. They or Theo must have planted it. But she cannot say it, can she? "Stiles, that is not my phone. Liam, do you remember that when we talked you heard a screech. It was the sound of the screen of my phone breaking," Elizabeth tells them, showing them her real phone. "What does this mean? You are the smart guy, Stiles... This means..."

"They had it all planned." These are news to her ears too. Elizabeth has been suspicious of the strange connection between Theo and the chimeras and herself, but, in the end, she could not believe everything is just a percent of a big plan. No doubt they are also scientists and not only psychopathic nutjobs.

They enter Scott's room and see him at the bathroom's door, calling Hayden. "Please, just open the door. It is Scott."

The Baby-Wolf is visibly worried and that saddens Elizabeth much. But she told herself she must not care about him anymore. "Hayden, hey, it is Elizabeth Hale. I am the wolf that save your ass earlier tonight. You have seen the Doctors, I guess. But you do not know yet what they are capable of. Believe me, they kept me in their hide-out for nearly a week and I saw one of their surgeries. You cannot imagine something creepier. That is why you need to let us help you."

"Hayden, please. Either you open the door nicely and let us help you, either I will break it," Scott adds. The door is immediately unlocked and ajar. They open it and see Hayden, her eyes sparkling golden and claws instead of nails.

"I believe you" is all she tells them.

* * *

As soon as the plan is made, Liam drags Elizabeth by the hand to another room. The look in his eyes is serious, maybe even worried and caring, and that seems like honey to a nearly-broken heart. Elizabeth can only look down at his hand on hers. "The last time we talked you said we were going to finish a discussion. I think this is the best moment," Liam tells her, letting go of her hand.

Elizabeth looks directly into his baby-blue eyes. She loves them so much. "I do not think it is the best moment. Those freaks are hunting that girl down. I am not sure we have time to talk."

"Yes, it is. Because right now we are safe. There is a chance that we die tonight. These guys are freakin' dangerous," he utters in a low voice, making sure nobody else can hear what they are talking. He wants to have this talk with her privately.

She bites her lower lip. "No. They will not kill you." Elizabeth knows that if she wants, she can ask the Doctors to spare his life. Her loyalty to them is tied with his life. If they decide to kill him, she will attack them. Hopefully, they will find her loyalty precious. She is a pure-blood Hale and her time to shape-shift into a full wolf will come soon. It happens faster to females than males. A few months ago, Derek turned. Soon, some more week, she will too; she can feel it. "I will not let them" is all she says.

"I want to talk about what you said back then."

"Baby-Wolf, I do not. After everything that happened to me these days, I have changed. I am just a lost cause, a failed thing. Stop thinking about me. Focus on someone else, on some other girl," Elizabeth replies him. She can barely keep herself from crying, but, as long as she is still herself, she needs to end it. Liam looks at her perplexed. He can't say anything. "I know what I said. I know that you searched for me this whole county. Thanks for that. But you needn't do more. Please, baby-wolf."

His eyes look directly into her, in disbelief. "How do you know that? You said you were in their hide-out for a week. Who told you?"

Surprised by his questions, Elizabeth answers truthfully, unable to make up a plausible lie in less than a second. "Theo told me."

The look on his face suddenly changes to disgust and disappointed and saddness, a big and bloody cocktail of these three emotions. "Him? What does he have to do with you or anything of this?"

"You do not get it. None of you know anything about him. I may not know much myself, but I know the truth. Be smart, Baby-Wolf. He is so much more important to the whole puzzle than any of us can imagine. Only I know that for now," Elizabeth answers him. She knows that if she spills more, the whole plan of hers and of the Doctors' will go down. And she cannot let that happen.

He looks down, visibly angered. The situation plus his I.E.D. and short-temper is not a good combination. "I just do not get it. And I do not think I want to."

"Forget about me." She takes his hand in hers. "I am a lost cause. We, together, are a lost cause. I am damaged goods, broken, unfixable. Stop caring about me 'cause you do not know anything about this new me, not anymore. And I too do no know anything about you anymore." Elizabeth sees him as the strongest wolf ever. She wants him to be that. She hugs him, letting him know that it is okay like that. She does not stop her tears from falling anymore. They flood her cheeks, like a waterfall. But they do not matter. They cannot matter. Why do they matter? Oh crap! "Baby-Wolf, I ruin this whole moment, I ruin every single word that I said and I know this way you will not be able to stop caring about me. But I do love you. And please do not dare to say it back. I love you and it freaking hurts, but I am not myself anymore, but some damaged version."

He looks at her, warmth and kindness and love in his eyes, and speaks slowly and lowly: "Did they do anything to you?"

She shakes her head, but avoids eye contact which leads him to believe something else. "It does not matter. We better go. Hayden is more important right now than me. We both know that." Her words do not refer to their dredful situation, but to what is there, inside the heart-shaped thing inside him. Elizabeth knows it is better like that. She can hurt him worse than ever, whenever she is to lose control. But he does not move. He freezes there, his eyes focused on hers. "Liam Dunbar, you force me to kiss you and I do not want that. You should not either," she adds, but kisses him anyway. The kiss reminds her why she chose him over Theo and got five new scars on her stomach. It was worth it. She loves the Baby-Wolf.

Then she breaks away.

"Remember this is the end of the thing called 'us'. Let's go now."

As an answer, he nods absently.

Liam nearly fades to sleep. Hayden has already. He cannot let himself sleep. Scott and Lydia are a few feet away. Elizabeth is sitting on a bench, looking outside through a window. She seems absent-minded. He looks at one of the bags on the bench. There is something in there. He smells iron. Standing from his place, he goes and opens it only to find some chains. Liam looks perplexed at Scott who can't think of a lie right then. "What are you doing with these?" the Beta asks.

Scott sighs. He will have to explain truthfully. "Just in case."

"Case of what?"

Lydia turns to him. "Just in case we can catch one of them."

Liam looks from Scott to Lydia and from Lydia to Scott. That is a part of the plan he has not heard of. The Beta turns to Elizabeth who looks equally surprised. "Do not look at me. I have just come back from the worst trip ever; even I do not trust myself."

"If we cannot make the school a fortress, then we can at least make it a trap," Scott tries to explain, but Liam can barely listen now. He is fighting hard to process it.

Then he turns to a now-awake Hayden. "They are coming for her. Does not that make her just a bait?" Liam asks. Scott lowers his head. Liam is right. Hayden has becomes just a bait. But that is all he can do, besides running and trying to protect everybody. There is no other plan. Just... take care of everybody and of the enemy. They just cannot keep running away, hoping the Doctors would stop. They will never. The Dread Doctors are here and ready to take all of their heads off.

"Scott, promise me," Liam adds, his eyes a bit teary. "Promise me you will do everything you can to protect her." The Alpha turns to Elizabeth who nods. Although she has been who-knows-where for a week, he still thinks of her as part of the pack, as one of the most important members of it. And, besides that, he knows she is the one who cares the most about Liam. Whatever she says, it is law, in such cases.

* * *

Scott is gone after Hayden's pills. Lydia is after him. Parrish takes care of the High School on the outside. Malia is at the main door. Elizabeth is guarding the door to the locker room. And Liam can only try not to think at how useless he feels. Elizabeth and him hear a sound and try to open the door. "Scott? Lydia?" they ask at the same time. But the people that enter are neither Scott, nor Lydia, not even Malia or Parrish. It is them. The Dread Doctors. Parrish, Malia, Scott and Lydia could not stop them. One way or another, they got it.

Liam and Hayden step back, frightened. Elizabeth, on the other hand, steps forward and attacks the three psychos, her eyes now sparkling. She is a werewolf to be feared of. Despite everything that happened, all the pain she has been through, she is in first-line to protect her friends. She aims for their heads, knowing that the titanium their masks are made of cannot be scratched that easily. Elizabeth is on both sides and to be believable for one of it, she needs to be a damn good actress, worthy of an Oscar.

"Hello, Elizabeth," one of them says. The line makes her freeze. That doctor grabs her, raising her body in the air, and throws her forward. Liam can barely catch her, falling himself too.

Elizabeth tries to stand on her feet, but pathetically stumbles and falls. On her second try, she can stand. "Do you know people can be tortured by making them listen to a certain sound for hours? Me and that line is the same thing. Sorry." She has his shoulder support her standing.

They all three make another step back and hit their backs against some lockers. The Doctors take one of the frequency devices that Parrish made and break it. "We are on a frequency you cannot possibly imagine" is all the Doctor has to add, as he reads the terror on all three faces in front of him, one more or less.

When he wakes up, Liam sees some tubes attached to his hand, injecting some kind of red liquid into his veins. Looking up, he sees Hayden tied to a stretcher and Elizabeth down on the floor somewhere in a corner of the room. She does not seem tied to anything, though. Then the Doctors appear. One of them is putting his mask on. The back of his head is disgusting: pale, rotten skin, with tufts of white hair here and there. He looks hundreds of years old, but that is what Valack was talking about: cheating death. They go to the stretcher Hayden is on.

"No. Do not hurt her. No," Liam mumbles, but they do not care. They keep on moving.

Elizabeth jumps between them and the stretcher. "Stop it. Please do not hurt her. I know you wanted her for that, but what is the need? What are your real plans with all of the chimeras, all of us? Just science does not mean they can go on killing sprees around the town."

They look at her. Under their masks, they must be annoyed. "Everyone else has failed. Need not to know more." Then, with a short move of his hand, he shoves Elizabeth into the back of the room. She lands very close to Liam.

"I am sorry, Baby-Wolf."

Liam can only look at him perplexed. "How that you talk to them like that? There is so much more to the story than you told." He swallows hard, hoping it is not real. He does not want to think of Elizabeth as a bad person, as one of the bad guys. But, eventually, that is the only conclusion he is led to.

"Liam, please, close your eyes. The only thing worse than seeing such a surgery done is being the pacient of one of them," she adds. The Baby-Wolf looks at her, questioningly. Has she been performed a surgery on? Reading on his lips the question, she nods.

Looking back at Hayden, he sees the Doctors dig into the lower part of her back with some pliers. He keeps on screaming at them: "No. Hayden. No. Do not hurt her!" But who was there to listen besides Elizabeth, saddened and feeling useless and powerless? Elizabeth, who he has just stopped trusting. Elizabeth, who has changed much. Elizabeth, who was on the Dread Doctors' side, as it seemed.


	8. happy ending

Life is a concept, a crappy one. You are born only to die. That is the happy ending we all get: death. Because the happy ending is that, what truly makes it worth the adjective is the way you die: happy or not. To die happily, you must not be killed, die peacefully and know you regret nothing. If by any means it is a forced death, then be sure you do not die in vain. Elizabeth's happy ending would be the Baby Wolf living happily.

At least, living...

After the talk she has had with one of the doctors, she is not sure anymore it would be happy. They need Hayden; she is their experiment, one of the few that have yet to fail, and he is in the way. But if they really wanted to kill him, Liam Dunbar would already be history. It is weird. He is of no use to them. She knows most of his medical records, the recent years by heart. And she has not heard of any transplant that would make him a genetical chimera, a being with different kinds of DNAs in the same body. Such biology stuff is not her cup of tea, but she had to listen to the stupid teacher. If they keep him alive, it will be for a reason. He is a werewolf, yes, but that is not a reason. Elizabeth was kept because of all the things, blood, stuff, that the Doctors put in her to save her life, years ago. If she were not a werewolf then, she would be no more today.

A thought has crossed her mind a few times. _'Am I anybody's happy ending?'_ For some time, over a year, she has hoped she is Liam's, but seeing Hayden now, Elizabeth doubts it. Everything she knows is falling apart. She has lost her anchor, a part of her identity as a wolf. She has lost her pack too, ever since that moment with Theo... That was when she felt for the very first time that there is life outside the pack and took the risk. One way or another, not all would end up alive after this whole adventure. And Elizabeth is at the top of the list, being on both sides, dancing with two partners at the same time, loving the Baby-Wolf, something-ing Theo. She cannot give up either. She cannot give up on herself.

But she is hearing his screams: "Please do not hurt her!" Liam is crying at the Doctors. They are prepared to open Hayden again, another surgery, another round of terror, more and more pain. Angered, he flashes his Beta eyes at them, only to be hit by a powerful leg straight in the face. He fades to darkness, as tears go down Elizabeth's face: slowly, then all at once.

"Crap! Crap! Crap! Holy...," Elizabeth mutters to herself. From behind, a Doctor approaches her. She jumps startled. "You are giving me heart attacks when you appear out of nowhere, like this." Despite the easiness she is talking with, she feels pressure coming up her spine, then in her chest, like a lump. She swallows hard and sighs, but it does not go away.

He breathes in, breathes out, looking at her. Through the mask, the eyes are studying her. "Hello, Elizabeth," he tells and she shivers, her legs already trembling. Even the Doctors were surprised by the effect of that simple line. "You accomplished your mission and took care of our entrance. We have had our doubts about your loyalty before. But as of today, your allegiance is of no use." As soon as he stops talking, he stabs her with a syringe, right in the stomach. She falls down, looking at him. If she is not useful anymore, then what will happen to her? What is left for them to do with her? In no way, they would let her go. That is not who they are.

* * *

He looks up. The hit was powerful. Next to him, it is an unconscious Hayden. On a stretcher in the other corner of the room is Elizabeth. Drops of something are coming down her face, but what can she feel guilty about or sad about, besides everything? She is on their side now. She must have helped them get to school, must have done something to Parrish, Malia, Scott and Lydia, so no one could stop the Doctors, must have personally handed him and Hayden to them. And her eyes are glowing yellow now, Omega yellow, quite an obvious difference from the Beta golden.

But, still, she threw herself in front of the Doctors several times to protect him and Hayden, has endured atrocious surgeries, pain and agony, has thrown herself in front of many other enemies for her friends several times, has always been that one person there for him. It seems impossible for her to have turned to the bad side. She is Elizabeth Freakin' Hale. There are not enough arguments. Liam lets his head down. He does not care anymore.

Elizabeth notices his movements and the cocktail of emotions inside him. "Baby-Wolf," he eventually hears her saying. "I am sorry. By the way, about Hayden, Scott taught you what we can do about pain. Try using it on her. She might feel better for some time. I am sorry, Liam." The way she calls him by his first name and not by the nickname that he has recently started to hate less and kind of love more, mostly because of the way Elizabeth was saying it, startles him. It hits his ears powerfully, brutally. That emotion is of the Liz he knows. But no, he closes his eyes. He does not care anymore.

The whole pain thing does not work. Liam is not Scott. The True Alpha can easily cure fifty dogs and thirty cats, not because he is an Alpha, but because he is Scott. Liam is not him. He cannot take pain away, not even focusing, not even when it is about Hayden. She is in front of him, in pains, agony, because these Dread Nutjobs performed a surgery on her. This girl, Hayden Romero, with brown eyes, dark hair and... full lips, like another girl's... She turns away, sobbing in pain. If he were not tied, Liam would hit something.

"Crap!"

* * *

Elizabeth is instantly blinded when a car flashes its lights at her. She has always hated it, the technology that constantly disturbs life and that is just as smart as stupid. She closes her eyes and keeps walking. With a terrible headache making her feet tremble, she knocks at the door. Stiles opens it only to immediately catch her. Something has happened. Carrying her to the living room, he puts her on the couch. Corey, Scott and the rest look at her, perplexed.

"What happened to her?" Scott asks his best-friend.

Stiles sighs. "How the hell I am supposed to know?"

Then, she opens her eyes and screams. "Crap!" Jumping from the couch, she runs to a corner of the room, looking confused at everybody. Elizabeth speaks between gasps and cries for the air that is not filling her lungs like it should. "How did I get here?"

Scott takes a step forward, extending his hand to reach her. He invited her to sit back on the couch. "Can you tell us everything?"

She nods and sits. "They took the three of us, one each. The Baby-Wolf and Hayden were unconscious. I was not. And when they figured that out, they stopped. You know me, I save my pack, God saves the queen, the rest save themselves. I jumped at them to take Liam back, attacked them. We fought. The guy bad doctor beat the crap out of me and left me in the middle of the street. They must have thought I would die."

"And you don't know how you got here? You knocked at the door yourself, you know, Liz," Stiles adds. He looks at her questioningly and doubtful. With each word she speaks, he starts making up different theories in his mind. Something has happened to Elizabeth while she was gone, something not okay.

* * *

Elizabeth opens her eyes and sees Theo by her bed. Lydia is somewhere in the other corner of the room, talking to that gay guy, Corey. He stands up and rushes to the door, cursing and saying something about Scott and claws and neck. She thinks he is referring to that Alpha ability she greatly dislikes herself. Theo turns to them. He and Lydia try to negociate with Corey on any other possible memory he has about their hide-out. Thankfully, they do not question her. She has already prepared some answers, just in case, but, considering her allegiance is of no use anymore, she can very well tell everything. That would put Theo in jeopardy. But he is not a good guy, despite all his efforts to make it look like that.

When she fully wakes up, she hears Corey telling them something about a basement. Theo, turning to Lydia, asks something about Parrish having gone to a basement a few weeks ago and having been attacked by the first chimera the pack had met.

A little bit later, Theo decides to go to that address. It is one of the few chances to find them. Both Elizabeth and him know that the Doctors move their experiments after they are done. There is not enough room in the practice. She was kept because they had other plans with her, but Hayden and Liam are mere pacients to them. They do not mean anything to the three psychos. "I am coming too," she tells them, standing up from her place.

Theo seems amused, but smiles kindly. Knowing everything about him, Elizabeth finds that odd. "You can barely stand. Stay here and let Lydia take care of you. I can take care of the two kids on my own. I know you played the babysitter role until now, but take tonight as your day off."

Elizabeth shakes her head. "No, Theo. You do not really understand what I feel. It is my fault on so many levels. Please, let me come with you. Lydia can stay here with Corey, but I am coming."

He grins and nods. "Fine." Then she follows him out and in his car. She throws herself on the seat next to the driver's and decides to wait for him to start a conversation. It seems better like that than any other way. After a few tens of feet from the house away, he starts speaking. "I do not tell anything about your adventures, if you do not tell about mine. You do not know much about me anyway."

All he gets from her is a smirk. "You have nothing to blackmail me with, Theo. When we were in the hide-out, Liam figured it out. And besides that, my allegiance is of no use anymore. That is what they told me, before knocking me out, perform another crappy surgery, then letting me on a random street in the town. It was hellish to crawl to that freakin' door."

Theo looks at her, surprised. "No use? You know this means that they will start hunting you down like the chimera you are. You are just like everybody else right now, like that girl Hayden, like Corey, and like the rest of all chimeras that are still alive."

"I thought so too."

"Are you scared?" he asks her when she looks down.

She shakes her head. "No. I am strong enough. I have my sharp claws, fast legs, strong opinions. Actually, I think that the doctors enhaced all my abilities through their surgeries. So, I think I will be okay. Anyway, one more blow to my stomach and I am dead and I will escape all the pain. But, I am fine."

Theo sighs. "Physically." Elizabeth only nods as an answer. "But mentally, what do you feel? When we last talked, we kind of fought. I am not the kind to hold grudges or anything and from what I have seen until now, you are neither. That is why I am asking. Would you be able to die knowing what situation you are in right now?"

She laughs. "Yes. I know that if I die in the following days, I will have died throwing myself in the middle of a battle, maybe protecting somebody. I am not the kind of person to die in vain. And dying for a person I love will be the happy-ending of my life." After another corner, they are there.

* * *

Theo enters in a hurry. Both werewolves can hear the voices of Liam and Hayden. They are there. They found the two. When he touches the metallic bars, he is thrown back instantly, electroshocked and knocked unconscious. Coming fast from behind, Elizabeth catches him. She lays him down and checks his pulse and his heart. Even with her super-hearing, what she hears is not promising. Actually, what she hears is silence. No, right then, she does not care about the two trapped teenagers that are looking at her right now. All she cares is Theo, unconscious, unresponsive. For the first time in her life, she does not find a hope to stick to. Maybe it's because she has never admitted to herself that he was part of that small group of people that she... she... that she would never give up on, that she would never stop carring about, that she would never be able to bear watching die. Things are put together in her heart and in her mind, that's why she needs to wake him up.

"No. Crap, no! Theo, wake up," Elizabeth screams, moving between his chest and head, continuing to check his pulse and breathing. As a werewolf, she has never needed knowing First Aid stuff. She has only learnt a simple CPR, out of curiosity, but it does not work. She does the chest compressions and the mouth-to-mouth thing, but she is not a doctor or anything. Elizabeth is a werewolf. And so is he. Holding his hand, she forces it to bend. A broken arm like that will forcefully start the healing. That is one hell of a way to bring a werewolf back. Just a few seconds... Elizabeth takes his head and looks at him. She kisses him, because that is the only thing she can think of right then. And it is not one of her mouth-to-mouth-thing failures. It is a real thing. "Please, do not die or anything like that. Despite everything, I kind of need-" she tries to say but is interrupted by him waking up.

She sighs relieved.

"Are you okay?" Liam asks from behind the bars. Only then, Elizabeth remembers he is there and has seen it all. Well, that confirms that everything is done between the ex-pack-mates. Just as she wants it to be.

He coughs, but stands. "I am fine. Who broke my arm anyway?" Then he turns to Elizabeth, figuring out the answer. She broke it to start his healing. Yes, she may have needed a few seconds to process it, but Elizabeth Smart-ass Hale is kind of smart.

"Do you think you can get help?" Liam inquires. Elizabeth barely looks at him, but she already knows he is holding Hayden's hand. Things change. Everything can change in less than the blink of an eye.

"We are the help," Theo and Elizabeth say at the same time. She, however, is not sure of how much Liam wants hers. Then both put their hands on the bars and, even though it hurts, it stings their fingers like a needle, they force the bloody door to open. They suceed and free the two kids. They saved them and that is a relief.

* * *

After Hayden and Liam enter the house, Elizabeth turns to Theo, who is locking his car. Both have heard the puppy-couple kiss in the backseat of the car the whole way back. Her pain went away because of the way the Baby-Wolf can kiss. Elizabeth agrees with the theory. Liam had a certain effect on her too. "You know what... I am going to keep your secret, the whole affiliation with the bad guys, Theo," she utters in a low voice, being sure nobody else would hear. "There is one condition: tonight, keep Stiles away from waking me up and interrogating me about everything. I will give them a good story tomorrow. Right now, all I want to do is sleep. And thanks for everything tonight."

He grins to her, visibly pleased. "It is a deal. You are not so much of a puppy, as I first thought you were."

The corners of her mouth raise up in a beautiful smile. She is rather amused. "So you slept with me, thinking I was a puppy-like werewolf. Funny thing, Raeken. By the way, you are not so much of a bad guy, as I first thought you are."

"So you were thinking I was just a bad guy..."

Elizabeth laughs. "Sweetheart, I have a thing for badboys. I cannot really stay away from there. The Baby-Wolf has firstly been my anchor, then stuff... Badboys are my type more than any other kind of guys. Keep that in mind."

"That is the one thing I do not like at you. Two out of three sentences you say are about the dwarfie," he replies, with a certain tone of annoyance in his voice. That amuses Elizabeth even more, who turns her back and prepares to enter the house too.

She really wants to sleep, but from the frame of the door, she adds loudly and truly : "You are one of the people I would die for, Theo." Then the door closes behind her. And all he is left with is a smirk on his face.

* * *

Elizabeth stands from the bed just as soon as she wakes up. She is met by the serious glare of Stiles's eyes. _'It is time for the party,'_ she thinks. Looking around the room, she sees everybody else: Scott, puppy-faced in his disbelief, Lydia and Malia, failing to give a serious look, also in disbelief, Liam and Hayden in a corner, both with an angry look on their faces, and Theo. Elizabeth nods to Theo, thanking him for keeping his promise. She has really had a good sleep.

From all the things she could start with, Elizabeth only says: "Where is Kira?" But when Scott lowers his head, she realises she should not have asked.

"That so much less important right now, Liz," Liam starts. Sometimes he called her 'Liz' as a joke, but this time the nickname is said with bitterness and disgust and hatred.

Elizabeth nods. Her eyes look directly into Liam's, then into Scott's, Stiles's and everybody's. "I knew this was going to be like this. The thing is that because of what Baby-Wolf and Hayden said you now think of me as one of the bad guys, but in fact... I am a victim."

Somebody in the back snorts and adds "A victim? What the hell?" Without looking, everybody else knows who it is and understands him. He has been hurt the most ever since he was turned into a werewolf, a year ago.

Elizabeth sighs.. "Yes. You know me and, hopefully, you will understand the whole story. At least, listen to what I have to say."

Stiles moves from his place. "No. No. Absolutely no. I know what she is trying to do. She will say her side of the story and make it look as though as she really is a freaking victim."

"I taught Baby-wolf everything I know. He will know if I even think of lying." Elizabeth glares at Liam, but he does not even want to look at her anymore. It is too painful.

Stiles nods. "Fine. But I ask, you answer."

Elizabeth throws herself back on the bed, resting her head against the wall. "Go on."

"When we fought with Tracy, after you left us to go to the basement where Tracy and Malia were fighting, what really happened?"

"They took me. And planted the fake phone, which you could not figure out was fake."

"What happened while you were there?"

"It is not working like this. Let's do it my way!" Elizabeth also mouths a "Please!" to Scott. As soon as he nods - depite Stiles and Liam's protests, a large smile invades her face. She continues: "Thank you. So you want to see what happened there to me? Fine." As soon as she finishes speaking, Elizabeth takes her shirt off, exposing the scarred skin over her stomach. The scars on her body should be familiar, at least to one of them, if not to all. The long, firm cut from that big bad surgery two years ago is now covered by five new ones. They are not just scars, they are claws-scars.

Theo clenches his fists. If she said anything, he's gone to hell. Elizabeth notices that change and that anxiety in him. Her eyes meet hers and that only enlarges the grin on his face.

"About this, let's just say that a friend of the Doctors got a bit angry at me. Am I lying, Dunbar?"

He breathes in, then out relieved when she explains it all, the half-truth. Elizabeth is not telling them the full truth, putting in him jeopardy. She is keeping her promise.

Liam shakes his head. "No."

"Good." Elizabeth turns around and shows them her back. A single, perfect, long and beautiful cut starts from the back of her neck and ends right above her butt. "This is from when they tried to turn me into Wolverine. It was not enough, as their chainsaw could easily go and cut my hand into halves." She shows them another scar, on her arm. Liam swallows hard, fighting hard not to throw up. "They cut my arm with the chainsaw and sewed it back. I feel I must mention the fact that they haven't got any morphine or any anesthetics, just as a totally unimportant detail. You want me to show you how they took my heart out for the body, played with it for three minutes, then put it back and electroshock it to restart it. Physically, it shouldn't have been possible. Supernaturally, yes. Now tell me whether I am a victim or not." Elizabeth is amused by the horrored look in their eyes. They were not expecting such things.

Stiles lowers his head. Everybody is visibly shocked. Liam clenches his fists, losing his focus for a while.

That is when she acts. Elizabeth jumps behind Scott and puts a hand around his neck. "My money's are one an afirmative answer." Liam looks perplexed at her. She almost won him with her story, but now it is clear: everything, including her, has changed. And there it goes the trust, tossed in the trash like the least important thing.

Stiles steps forward. He is only human and yet he would jump in the battle for his friend. Malia switches nails for claws and is ready to attack, but a hand stops her. It's Theo, muttering to her ear. "Don't do anything stupid. Her claws are on his neck, next to the artery. You can't get her down faster than she can slit his throat."

"Everybody'd better step back. I do not want to do this either. The orders are strict and I cannot disobey. I just can't, I wouldn't be able to even if I wanted to. Sorry!" Liam still stares in disbelief. He cannot process it all. Elizabeth, who he has been in love ever since he was first turned, who he still thinks about every single day of the week, has turned to the bad side. Stiles feels useless and Scott won't react in any way that can hurt his pack member. And Elizabeth seems ready to press her claws into Scott's neck.

Lydia swallows hard. She's stepped forward, in front of Hayden, in a protective way. "Elizabeth, this isn't you. Let Scott go. We can solve this. We can make the Doctors pay for whatever they've done to you. Don't be their pawn. Please!"

"I already am!"

Tears go down her face. And then she proceeds to push her claws into Scott's skin. Almost at the same time, it hits Liam, the only way out of that crappy situation, those words that are going to make her go down before she did anything else. "Hello, Elizabeth" is all he says. She instantly blocks and falls to the ground, hitting her head against the floor. Elizabeth instantly fades to the darkness.

* * *

When she wakes up, Elizabeth is somewhere else. She sees herself in some kind of jail. That feeling, behind the bars, is unbearable. Looking around, somebody next to her. And it is the most perfect person possible. "How are you doing, Baby-Wolf?"

Liam has his head lowered. "I still don't get it. Why would you do it? Betray us and join their side and try to kill Scott?" he asks her, in a low voice, his words being bitter and sad.

She sighs. "I said it all. I am different, damaged. It does not matter what I think or what I want, not anymore. The Doctors want me to do something and I do it. My body just does it."

"I do not get it. Despite what I said earlier, I think I want to. The thing is that I can't forget who you were and all the things you left behind. The thing is that I might still love you."

The words stab Elizabeth right in the back, twisting an old knife and making it hurt like hell. She swallows hard and wipes her teary eyes. "You don't love me anymore, Baby-Wolf. You think you do but it is not true. Go love Hayden. She is beautiful, she is sweet, your age, strong."

"You too: beautiful, sweet and strong. And age does not matter," he replies her, his baby-blue eyes looking directly into hers. His first reaction to everything was, of course, fury, but he has finally processed it all.

"Hayden is safe."

He clenches his fists. "I am werewolf, you and Scott and Derek too. Hayden is a chimera. Lydia is a Banshee, Malia a werecoyote, Kira is a fox and Parrish is who-knows-what. Are we ever safe?"

"At least safer. Go love her. You already like each other. Do something not to miss this chance too, not to lose her..."

"Like I lost you, Liz?" Liam adds. This time the nickname is bitter.

"No. I lost you. I lost all of you."

He stands and looks at his wristwatch. His shift is almost over. "Look, you are never going to lose me, not even if we all end up dead. I know that for sure. It is because I can't control what I feel." He extends his hands through the metallic bars, searching for hers. But she steps back. She has ended everything two night before.

"Go love her."

Liam takes his hand back. He looks at his wristwatch again, turns around and leaves. Malia enters after several seconds. "It my shift. I think four hours will be enough time for us to talk. I do not buy your story, though Liam said you weren't lying." Liz rolls her eyes and throws herself in bed, sighing.

The same question is haunting her whole day: 'why?' Well, it is because of this and because of that. As soon as Lydia's shift is over, Theo enters the room. The atmosphere suddenly gets lit up. "How are you doing?" he asks her.

She laughs. "Fine. You wanted to check out whether I killed myself or not. If it is not obvious already, I didn't."

"I kind of came for that and for around four more hours. But I find the whole guarding thing a little bit boring." He sits on a chair, as he speaks. "By the way, I guess they did not tell you, but this is Deaton's basement." She remains silent for a few seconds. They have not good many things to talk about, as it seems.

"Couldn't you bring a chessboard and we could play something?" Elizabeth adds.

He grins at her, looking rather amused. "Don't you think that everything around us is like a chess game? Some are pawns, some are kings."

"I am a pawn of both colors." Elizabeth lowers her head and sighs. It is not a situation she wanted to find herself in.

Theo gives her a serious glare. "No. In fact, you might be a queen, 'cause any way you go you still are unstoppable."

"And who is my king? Actually what is my color?" She jumps from her seat as she talks and forces herself to break the bars. A seal of mountain ash throws her backwards. She hits her back against the concrete wall. After two cries and three mumbled words, she stands again.

"It depends on who you want him to be and on who you are? And if you do not know that, think about your anchor. Once you changed as a person, turning to evil or to good, your anchor changes too. Who is it?"

She shakes her head. "I do not have one. I lost who I had."

"Find yourself a new one," he replies with a strong voice.

"It is not that easy, Theo. By the way, do you remember that night that you came to see me for the same reason?"

"Yes. Do you want me to go now that I saw you are alive?" Theo then stands. But she knows he wouldn't leave like that.

"Do whatever you want to do," she adds as she winks at him. He comes closer to the her cage and, leaning forward, blows towards the mountain ash. The seal is broken. Together, they bend the bars not for her to come out, but for him to go in. As soon as he comes in, she puts her lips on his. And the kiss feels just right because it is him. Theo. Him. It is finally real. Then she takes her shirt off, he does that too and the whole thing becomes a roller coaster, a montagne rousse, of emotion and passion and something else.

Looking at the door, she sees her chance maybe... But she wouldn't end it with Theo this soon. He is someone she would die for.


	9. creepy paradise

Theo blinks once and she is gone. That amuses him. She is on the run and deciding what side she is on. He's curious about how her whole adventure is going to end. One thing is for sure: things cannot be forgiven and forgotten and cannot go back. Either she joins the bad side and fights with it forever or ends up an Omega, thing that might have already happened, and die, probably, in the middle of the battle. The big fight will come together with the supermoon. The perigee-syzygy or whatever people want to call it is going to bring the game to a whole new level. The Doctors have many things planned for this event and it looks like the pack do not care much about it. It is their chance to die. But they can also live. It depends on whether they still trust each other. Scott seems to have lost his True Alpha mojo and confidence and Stiles is split between his secret and the pack. One way or another, they better stick together.

Before putting his shirt on, Theo slashes around his torso, nails turned into claws. He bites his lip and doesn't let the wound hurt. It is nothing compared to other things. Finally, he puts his shirt on and rushes out. The first person he sees is Malia. "Hale is gone. Soon, they go with Scott and Stiles to search for her around Beacon Hills, but it is obviously useless. She vanished in thin air and won't make appearence until she wants to. That has always been a talent of hers.

* * *

"I need more time," the Beta says as he enters their hide-out.

But they are not listening. The Surgeon and the Geneticist are injecting one another with some syringes that contain some weird liquids. They show off their rotten skin, almost every inch of it sewed back after who-knows-what surgery-thing. As it seems, not only Stanley Kubrick's movies, but also Frankestein's monster himself inspired these guys.

"Do you hear me? I said I need more time," Theo repeats, visibly annoyed. He works with the Doctors and has their trust, but obviously does not know that he better not command. They do that. The Dread Doctors are worse than anything he can imagine and, only because they find his allegiance precious he is not on a stretcher too.

The Surgeon answers simply. "Perigee-syzygy."

"The Supermoon."

Turning to the young werewolf, the Doctors adds: "We will know at the perigee-syzygy."

Theo takes a step forward. "What about Hayden and Liz?" Hayden actually means nothing to him, right now. He is only doing this because Elizabeth asked. Theo knows she did that out of her undue love for the dwarfie-wolf, who would die broken-hearted after Hayden's death and Elizabeth's betrayal. Something itches in the back of his head thinking about her still caring for him.

"Failures" is the answer that comes immediately, the answer that confirms it all.

"No. Not to me."

The Doctor sighs. He is obviously annoyed and bored by such a discussion. "Failure compromises the experiment pool."

"I kept Scott out of your way. I did everything you wanted me to do. Now, I want Elizabeth alive. Hayden too. You promised me a pack," he continues, but seemingly uselessly. The Doctors have decided what their next move is, getting their hand on Hayden too, and not even Theo would make them change their minds.

"We did not promise you anything."

"I need them alive." Theo loses his temper, screaming his words at them. Slowly, easily, he realizes he, in fact, barely means anything to them. They have him do some things, letting him hope for a pack and for some place where he could belong truthfully, hopes that will never be answered.

They all turn to him. The Beta steps back, visibly frightened by their sudden change of mood. They could attack and kill him in less than a blink of an eye. The Surgeon comes closer, removing a spike from the back of the dead body of a boy, and approaches Theo. "Only until the perigee-syzygy." Theo looks perplexed as The Surgeon disappears in the shadows, barely realizing that he has won Hayden another day. Elizabeth would anyway survive; that is who she is. He hoped for more, but many things can happen in a day. And if things work right, it is not going to be just a day.

* * *

"They got Corey today too," he says. Her only answer is a sigh, being sad and disappointed and a bit afraid. Of course, the Doctors do not scare her, not anymore at least, more than the idea of having her friends hurt or even killed. _Her friends..._ That is almost cute, how she is still thinking of them as friends. They are thinking of her as an enemy. It is crushing her heart, but it is real and the truth and cannot be denied. And it's a fun supernatural soap-opera to watch. "They gave Hayden time until the supermoon."

"This only means a day. After that, Hayden is dead, rest of the chimeras will be dead. I will be dead too. Among us, Hayden is the only one that can be saved. One way or another, we need to fight. I do not know about you, but I am going to protect them all," she tells him, her fists clenched and ready. She is physically, mentally, emotionally and completely ready for anything and everything.

Theo raises an eyebrow. "Are you willing to die for all those people that right now hate you?"

Elizabeth nods. "It does not matter what they feel. What I feel is important when I make choices. And I have already said a dozen times, I would die for them, just like I would die for the town, just like I would die for you too, Theo."

He shakes his head. "I wouldn't. I wouldn't die for someone like me. If it's ever the case, try not to die for me or someone like me. I am not worth it. You are more than just an ant, you know, the whole unstoppable queen thing from earlier."

"No. When they got me, they changed me into a cheap knockoff. All chimeras are cheap knockoffs of actual species of things. Hayden is such a thing too. I do not think we were even made to live much. I just do not know what their goal was when we were created. We only fail." Then it hits her. "I don't think we were ever created to succeed. This whole failed chimeras chapter is a mirage, a bait, something Scott and everybody would take care of and miss another thing, the big bad climax. The fact that they have not hunted any of us down means they are not interested in that. We are no important pieces of the game. It's only about them. They are working... out," she tries to explain. "They want to get better at whatever their doing, for some reason. They need to be perfect before something else hits.."

Theo lowers his head, processing the information. Her theory has holes and barely makes sense, but it is the only thing she has. And after all, what really makes sense in this world? He thinks a bit and decides what his next move is. "What should be done? What should we do? What about Scott and the pack?"

"It depends. Do you still want a pack? You only have me right now. Your own pack? Take Scott's and I'm out." Elizabeth, at first, gives him a serious look, stepping forward. She pats his shoulder, the corners of her mouth raise up and form some kind of smile. The expression on her face changes from seriousness to warmth. "Remember our metaphors-game about chess. You can be a black pawn or a white bishop. The queen and the bishop take down the enemy king most frequently."

He grins. "You realize that your tries on getting me help all of you will not really do much. I have made a deal with the devil and I am supposed to keep going. The same is for you too, right? They set your brain that whenever you are at less than 5 meters from Scott, attack and kill him. You can't stop, not even if you want, right?"

She shakes her head. "Not kill him. They want me to bring him to them. It seems a full-blooded Hale is not good enough. They want a True Alpha to play with. They used me too much and I broke. I thought they enhaced everything I can do with their surgeries, but, on the contrary, I am getting slower, weaking."

Theo widens his eyes in disbelief. "What? Their surgeries were meant to create the superwolf, one they can use as a watchdog, especially during the supermoon. That is also why they do not hunt you down like the rest of the failed chimeras."

Elizabeth only sighs. "You asked me what should be done. I know what I will do. I plan on dying heroically. Please promise me something, Theo. Promise me that, when it is all over, you tell them I never betrayed them.

"Why don't you tell them yourself? When this is over, they will not trust me anymore, of course, if any of them are still alive."

She smiles timidly. "They will live. I feel it. And you are right, they won't trust you anymore. I better write them a letter. And say it all. See you later, at the perigee-syzygy" She puts one hand at her temple and grimaces, as a round of intense pain hits her. He nods and turns around on his calves and leaves. She is left looking at Theo, vanishing swallowed by the shadows, and with severe headaches. The surgeries and the supermoon, among other things, give her unbearable pains. But it will all end soon.

* * *

It breaks her heart seeing that scene. The rain makes it even more dramatic and also make her hair curl up and look bad. But back to the couple break-up she is looking, it makes her sick. Elizabeth knows Theo had a hand in it. He must have told Scott something, but not the truth. She'll have to talk with him about that. But he, after all, is going along with his plans. "Say you believe me," Stiles repeats like three times. However what he reads in Scott's eyes is the opposite: disbeliefs. And that hurts him a lot, right behind the stern bone, behind the ribs, but in front of the left lung, right in that heart-shaped thing in his chest.

"We can't kill people. Do you believe that?" Scott asks him.

The Stilinski boy has not idea where Scott knows the whole story from and can only guess that Theo spilled something. No matter how much he would want to tell about Josh too, he does not. He only lowers his head trying to find an answer. When Stiles realizes he can't, he replies Scott: "What do I do about this? What do you want me to do? Scott, just tell me how to fix this, alright? Please just tell me what do you want me to do?"

Scott only tells him to go and talk to his dad and turns around to enter the clinic. Stiles is left looking at his best-friend, who has just turned his back to him. Perfect freakin' thing. He goes back to his Jeep, starts the engine and leaves, his eyes teary. He hasn't cried in a long time.

After the Jeep disappears from sight, Elizabeth steps on the wet pavement, her shoes barely not slipping. Her presence is easily noticed by the True Alpha who comes out, fast and angrier than she has ever seen him before. "What the hell do you want, Liz? You run away, we get you, you run away."

She smiles. "Stiles is not guilty, as you all think."

Scott only sighs. "Why would we even believe you? I do not even know what side are you on. Maybe you don't either. But if you've really left Liam and all of us behind, then stick to where you belong now, for God's sake." He wants to continue, but after one blink, she is gone from sight. He would be talking to nobody beside the rain. And he is not that crazy to talk to the rain. What he does not know is that Elizabeth has already chosen. Theo too. And the perigee-syzygy, the supermoon, is so freaking close. And death is in the air. But first... let Elizabeth write a letter. She better do that fast.

* * *

 _'Dear ... , this is Elizabeth Hale. I am sorry 'cause this letter might be a little weird, but I had to put it all down and just make things clear for whoever ends up finding this, just in case I die. Tomorrow is the supermoon, the perigee-syzygy, and also the big bad battle between the Dread Doctors and the pack._

 _After everything that has happened, I belong to no side. I am trusted by neither sides, but I have my faith in some people. Scott McCall, Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin, Malia Hale, Kira Yukimura, Liam Dunbar and Theo Raeken will all survive this. I can feel it. I am no saint, no sinner, no Banshee to predict death, but I feel that its scythe won't touch them. People can die in the blink of an eye, in less than a second, heartbeat zero, heart not moving, brain dying, lungs blocking. So many ways to die and, yet, everything ends with cardiac and/or respiratory arrest. But they won't._

 _I need to tell everybody a few things, step by step. The first thing on the list would be the real story, everything since that girl, Tracy Stewart, the Kanima-Werewolf chimera, attacked Mrs. Martin and Sheriff Stilinski at the Department. What I told Liam, Stiles and Scott was completely true; the Doctors took me and performed different kinds of surgeries on me, scarring my body permanently and developing a mental torture technique which I still cannot fight with. I do not want to get this part of the story very detailed because it is disgusting and I particularly dislike it._

 _During my time in their hide-out, I have seen Donovan, who they have turned into a Wendigo chimera, Zach, a winged chimera, among others. They all were simple teenagers who could have had a bright_ _future_ _right ahead of them. But they were genetic chimeras, having had a transplant of some kind. In Tracy's case, it was some skin. In Hayden Romero's, a kidney. In mine, skin and blood and some organs. My body must have been some kind of creepy paradise to the sick minds of the Doctors. Two years ago I_ _had a big surgery. I jumped between Scott and an oni that wanted to kill him. It got me. Most of what is in there, in the lower part of the abdomen, had to be taken out._ _Another disgusting chapter of my life..._

 _After they finished their experiments on me, surgeries that_ _were supposed to enhance my abilities and turn me into a superwolf, their own watchdog, they let me return, at first to spy on my friends. Later, they did something to me that made me lose control of my body whenever I was too close to Scott. They did not want him or anything like that, like we all thought they would. At least from what I could figure out, I think they have never wanted to kill any supernatural being. Their experiments are meant to turn humans into something special through unnatural ways._

 _Overall, I never willingly betrayed any of my friends. As I said countless times, I would die for each of them. If I had seven lives, I would give each one of them to Scott and Stiles and Liam and Theo and everybody else._

 _Scott, the True Alpha. To be honest, at first I was a bit annoyed that a random kid like you got bitten. Later we would_ _form_ _a pack. I also_ _was a bit jealous when you were revealed to be a True Alpha. But in the end, being your Beta was an honor. I apologize for having disappointed you. Stiles, the Genius. Simple, innocent, skinny, inoffensive, smart, human. I hope you are happy that I am taking the secret of your name to my grave. Thanks for all the sarcastic jokes. They helped. And by the way, don't_ _give up on Lydia. Derek and Cora and, even Uncle Peter. I miss you all already. Though we all had burns and scars, you were my definition of a family. Malia, a werecoyote cousin. You were a lone weregirl searching for a family and I knew how bad it was to be all alone. Lydia, the Banshee. Thank you for everything. Truly._ _Mamma McCall, Sheriff, thanks for being some kind of parent figures. You give the best advices life-related. We all would have been dead for a long while already if you_ _hadn't been with us. Allison, I miss you still. We still do. But you are with us. I will be coming to you soon and together we will take care of them. That sounds good. Mason, you better take care_ _of Baby-Wolf or I will haunt_ _you. You have always said about me that I can be both cute and creepy at the same time. Do not give me the chance to show it! Kira, where are you now? They won't tell me. But it does not matter. I know you are safe. Deputy Parrish, I have my theories, but nobody would listen. Just be sure you don't kill anybody. Thanks for protecting us until now._

 _God..._

 _Baby-wolf, Liam Dunbar, Beta. For God's sake. I might not sound very coherent in this paragraph. All I want to say is 'Thank_ _you!". Millions of times. Thank_ _you for giving me the chance to figure out who I am. Thank you for giving me the chance to figure out what love is. Loving you saved me on so many levels. Thank you for saving me. I do not seek your forgiveness, but I need to say that I never wanted to hurt you. I did not want to say it when_ _you asked because I was afraid_ _you would not give up on me and get hurt even more. We will go separate ways, in spite of all that we might feel or... still feel. I want to protect you from up there. That is why when I am asked whether I believe in oblivion or not, I answer no. If there is nothing after live, how am I going to take care of my friends from heavens? Oblivion is impossible to me. Baby-wolf, I am sorry. Thank_ _you. I will always love you, one way or another._

 _Finally, Theo. I know_ _I promised you that I would keep your_ _secret, but when anybody reads_ _this, it will all have already been revealed. This will hurt Baby-Wolf much, but I want to be just as honest as I can be. So, Theo... when the Doctors first got me and I first saw you there, I thought_ _you were a freaking bastard. I really wanted to rip your throat off with my teeth. I don't know what brought the two of us on that stretcher, but it ended up as something I hated about myself then and now am happy with. Sometime later, you carved five more scars on my already damaged body. It's okay. I deserved them. My way of saying that I would die for you too can also mean something else. Because of all the differences and of the sides we are on, I am not sure I will ever be able to say it out loud. Somehow, though, I think you already_ _know. You must have figured it out. I did when us happened for the second time._

 _In the end, I'm sorry, thank you and I love you._

 _To all._


	10. always

A knock at the door wakes her up. It is time. Instantly, the door is blown off and a silhouette enters, calling her name. "Hello, Elizabeth." For the first time in a while, she doesn't tremble when she hears that. "It's time to move. The La Bete plan has reached its final stage and it's working out faster than I could even imagine."

She swallows hard when she hears it. But it's the Supermoon tonight, after all; things had to start moving. "Is Hayden dead already? This means that your plan to turn Liam against Scott, having them kill each other, did not work."

Theo just grins. "It hasn't happened yet. But I won the dwarfie. It is not long until he'd attack Scott. Truth be told, Liz, I think we've talked about this before, about the things one would do for the loved one."

"We both knew Liam would fall in this trap. I would too. Any of us would, but..."

"I wouldn't," he finishes for her and turns around leaving. "I've got things to take care of. Do whatever you want to do, but stick with the plan. If you know the location, I'll see you there." With that, he leaves. After five more minutes, she goes out too, with a pretty full agenda.

* * *

Scott looks at his inhaler and is completely angered by how useless and powerless he is. A few years ago, he was a stupid sixteen-year-old teenager who got bitten by an Alpha and was turned into a werewolf. Slowly, slowly, he became powerful, somebody else. A year and a half ago, he became a True Alpha, one of the strongest werewolves ever, and ever since then, he's been strong enough. He's defeated Deucalion, the Alpha of Alphas, survived Nogitsune and all sorts of assassins, turned Liam and now he's powerless. What he feels is not just sadness, it's fury. He clenches his fist, breaking the inhaler still in his hand. A pink powder dissolves in thin air and then it hits him, what that is. "Wolfsbane..." This guy, Theo, has got under his skin all this time and slowly separated him from the pack. That son of a...

Behind him, another werewolf makes his appearance. Without looking, Scott knows it's Liam. Theo must have given him the idea of turning Hayden. Liam wouldn't have thought about it on his own. And right now, Liam wants to get Hayden a bite, even if it means killing him, getting the Alpha spark and biting her himself. It was all part of Theo's agenda. "Did you lie to me?" The Beta asked, showing off his sharp fangs, pure anger being read on his face.

"I've never lied to you."

Liam moves around him, as his nails grow longer, becoming claws. "You promised you'd save her."

Scott knows it's useless to try to talk with him, but tries anyway. Reasoning with a Beta with anger issues is a tough job. "I can't save her, not with the bite. If you'd just think for a second, you'd see that."

Liam snorts, his eyes glowing murderously. "I am thinking. I'm thinking about alternatives."

Scott looks at the moon that appears from behind the clouds. It seems it's laughing at him. "The supermoon, it's feeding your anger. It's making you more aggressive."

"It's making me stronger." And with that, Liam jumps at Scott, attacking him with all he's got. But before getting at him, he is hit by something else.

A weak fist against his stomach has him step back. The surprise makes him stop, but, as soon as he realizes who is between him and Scott, he proceeds towards his target again. "You're not like this, Liam," she screams at him, raising one arm in the air to stop his claws from coming any closer to her hand.

Liam roars. "Guess I've changed, Liz. I'm not the only one, anyway."

She smiles. "Did I?" And steps back. Then turning to Scott, she adds: "What do you think Scott? Isn't this something of a deja vu?" Scott looks at her perplexed. But he realizes it's not the first time she's put herself between him and somebody else. This time though, it's going to be bad. Something, a small spark in her eyes, tells him she can't fight Liam, but also that she's ready for whatever. Elizabeth loses her focus for a while and doesn't see Liam landing a punch right on her stomach. He knows too well that is her most vulnerable spot. "I'm happy you've moved on from me. But do you think this is what Hayden wants to see you as?" In the end, Elizabeth learns the same conclusion as Scott: trying to talk a anger-issued Beta out of his murderous plans is a freaking hard thing to do.

"At least she'll live." Then he punches his ex right in the face, sending her three steps backwards. She is one step away from falling off the roof.

"Liam, stop!" Scott adds, but it's again useless. His target now is that female Beta and he isn't going to even pay attention to the Alpha until Elizabeth is down.

"Why don't you fight back? If you really want to protect Scott, show your sharp claws and fight properly." He is visibly annoyed by her hesitant fighting style. It's like she only wants to distract him. Anyways, to finish his job and force Scott to keep his promise, he should better hurry and end the affair with her.

But in Scott's mind another question makes his appearance. _'How could she pass over the mountain ash seal? Unless she's too... Elizabeth has been kept and performed on by_ _the_ _Doctors. They could've... turned her into something else too...'_ Raising his head, he sees her smiling. Something in the expression she's got on her face makes him understand. But Liam doesn't. The Beta hits her again, cutting over her abdomen, five new scars, another history-repeating moment. She spits out blood and falls to the ground.

Tears falls down on both's cheeks. "I'm, in fact, quite happy about how things turned out. Don't worry, Scott, you'll be able to defeat the Doctors and Theo too, just like you've defeated the others. Believe me."

He looks down and does that he didn't do for Stiles a few hours ago, he believes in her words. He's got to fight back himself and win it all.

But the tear that goes down Liam's face is full of something else, regret. "Why won't you fight me? Answer me, Liz. You'll die this way, stepping back and receiving every single hit."

"Coming from you, all punches, all kicks, all hits are hugs to me. And anyway I am going to die." Elizabeth lowers her head and spits again. This time is blood and a silver liquid. They immediately know what it is.

"Mercury...," Scott mutters. He looks up again and sees the moon glowing and smirking devilishly at them. He hears how it whispers to Liam's ear to end that fight that hasn't even begun. Elizabeth grins again. It slowly turns into laughter.

Liam swallow hard and roars again, his fury fed up by her reaction. "Stand up. Fight me. Why won't you?" She does that and as soon as they're at the same level he raises his hand into the air. It is as fast as a lightning bolt, when his claws go through her chest, piercing the heart-shaped thing there. They both know it's the end.

"Because you'll always be my Baby-Wolf." Elizabeth smiles with warmth. A few drops of mercury come out of her eyes, like they are some kind of tears. She is still standing, but going backwards. Unwillingly, her body takes that one step needed and she falls off. Looking down at his hand, Liam sees both mercury and blood. He knows what he's done. But then again, the thought of Hayden dying and Scott not willing to help feed further his anger. The supermoon's spotlight is right on him. He turns to Scott, shining his eyes brighter than ever.

"You killed her." Scott is obviously more shaken. "You used to love her. Did the supermoon make you forget that?

Liam turns to him, breathing in and out heavily and gasping. He snorts, saying: "Used to?! You know what, Scott, you are right. I lost her. That's why I mustn't lose Hayden as well." The Beta jumps at him. Scott still hopes he can get him back, by talking. It isn't going to work. But Scott can't let Liam kill him.

* * *

Mason passes the library's door in a hurry. He needs to get to Liam. But the monstrous screams, were-roars, do not sounds very promising. As he enters, he calls his friend several times. "Liam, Liam, what are you doing?" He sees the Beta leaning on towards Scott, ready to stick his claws into his Alpha's neck. He gasps, stopping, and raises his head to see a deadly shocked Mason. He doesn't know him as a monster, but as a werewolf. He shouldn't be a monster. But that is exactly what he has been for the past hour, attacking Scott, killing Elizabeth, messing everything up. He looks directly into his friend's eyes and reads the bad news. "She's gone. Hayden died a few minutes ago. She's gone."

The feeling freaking hurts. Everything he thought he was right to do is in fact stupid. Elizabeth would have not died in vain if his goal had been achieved. It doesn't matter anymore. What matters? Hayden is dead.

* * *

Just as Parrish disappears into the shadows with Hayden's body in his arms, Liam lowers his head. It's all gone. It's all been in vain. He looks down at his own hands, finally realizing what he's done with them that day and what he hasn't. He has killed Elizabeth Hale, his first love, has attacked Scott McCall, his Alpha, had shown the face of a true monster to Mason Hewitt, his best-friend, and has let Theo Raeken, a son of a..., trick him, but hasn't been next to Hayden Romero, his new girlfriend, while she was fading away, into the darkness.

The pack is broken.

Hayden is dead.

Elizabeth is dead. He's killed her himself.

And it's all his fault. Liam clenches his fist and shoves it into a wall, punching the concrete as hard as he can. He feels pain and sees his knuckles and fingers bloodied. But the wall felt nothing. Because it is a wall. It is not human. It cannot feel anything. That is the thing that makes everybody human: feelings. Things don't feel. Monsters can't feel. At least this pain, as meaningless as it is, reminds him he's still himself.

Pain is some kind of anchor. But physical pain eventually becomes manageable. After three seconds, it doesn't not hurt anymore, the only proof that he's really hit that wall being the blood in his hand and the crevasse-like crack in the wall. Everything else doesn't exist anymore, after only three moments. The kind of pain that lasts is emotional. And most people learn it the hard way. Liam realizes that the supermoon-fuelled anger, combined with his I.E.D., should make him want to tear the building down, but that is not happening. The sadness and regret for both Hayden and Elizabeth are tearing him down.

Had he known Hayden was to die anyway, he would have not even touched Elizabeth, would have not tried to hurt Scott, would have not shown Mason how a real monster could look like. So many regrets and so many 'if's, but they are all worthless.

Liam stands from his place. He needs to go somewhere. He needs to leave that place, where the smell of a dead body, _Hayden's_ , can still be felt. It burns his nostrils, his senses, twisting the knife in the already big and bloody wound. He needs a place, somewhere clean, where he can let it all out. It is not his home; it's something beyond a parent's understanding. _'Hey, mom and stepdad, I've killed my ex and my current girlfriend died while I was trying to hurt my friend.'_ Under normal circumstances, the thought would make him laugh, but right now, Liam doesn't know what hope and happiness and love feels like.

Elizabeth is dead.

Hayden is dead.

The pack is broken.

The young Beta has lost mostly everything he would die for. And even this thought hurts him because 'dying for something you love and not in vain' is Elizabeth's manifesto, something he's learnt from her, besides the art of lie-detecting. He would have been half of what he's now, hadn't it been for her. He loved her and he killed her. He loved her and he killed her. She loved him back and let him do that. To her, he was worth dying for.

And what hurts the most is that he isn't sure that he would have died for her. A year ago, when she's met her, she was just another werewolf, one of the crazy nutjobs from that night at the Martin Lakehouse. When he was afraid he was just a monster, she showed him how a werewolf is totally opposite from such a creature. And that mattered a lot. By the end of the adventure, before the trip to Mexico, something changed in both of them and it was unthinkable and unbelievable, but also perfect. It was the big L-word. He'd fallen in love with her and so had she. And last summer still is the best he's ever lived. She won't be in his next.

However, after the start of the new school year, senior year for her and Scott and Stiles and the rest, while he and Mason and Hayden were just sophomores, things changed. It isn't that she behaved strangely, but she disappeared then came back and was just different. He was the bad guys' side. Or that's the impression he's got. She was talking to the Doctors like she could change their minds, but that did not happen. So they were not allies or anything. And if Elizabeth wasn't their ally, it means she was their enemy. And the pack's enemies' own enemy would be an ally. A few minutes ago, Scott asked him to think for a second and he was thinking about alternatives. But if he had thought about it for a second, if he had done some simple logics and maths, Liam would have figured out that she was still with them. And that is also the reason why she's once again thrown herself in a battle to protect Scott. And by protecting Scott, Liz also protected Liam, from doing something he wouldn't have really wanted to do. And he's killed her. That is incredible.

Liam punches again a wall and this time something cracks in his hand. He doesn't hit with the werewolf superstrength, but as a simple human. Werewolf from head to toe, but he's still human. And in his fist, his emotions and feelings and regrets and hopes are mixed together.

Her image reappears in his mind. _She is smiling. She is strong. She is Elizabeth Hale. She is Liz. She is his Liz._ And with that her words ring in his ears, like the loudest musice he's ever heard, a powerful piano piece that starts down, in a minor scale, but then rises up in a beautiful crescendo. He also remembers that she used to like Beethoven and Brahms. _'Because you'll always be my Baby-Wolf'._ That is what she said. Liam has tried for a while to believe something else, but the truth is that he could have never given up on her. The truth is that he still loves her. He loved her and he killed her. He still loves Elizabeth, but he has killed her. The same thing can go for Hayden. He still loves her, but she is dead.

Soon, two papersheets come before his eyes. He almost steps over them, unable to care less than he does, but then he notices the handwriting, ugly and beautiful at the same time. Elizabeth's handwriting, he'd recognize it anywhere at any time. It's a letter from her. He looks at it, unable to understand any bit of it. But that doesn't matter, holding it into his bloodies hands hurt a lot. It hurts. That is because the dead cannot be forgotten and you cannot stop loving them just because they are not with you anymore. Some people do not even die. They are still there, guiding you on a better path, or are somewhere else, where they're starting their new life, a brilliant, happy one. Either way, people cannot just fade away. This is how oblivion is impossible. That is another one of Elizabeth's many manifestos. But they all are right.

Liam bites his lower lip and raises his head. He knows for sure that Elizabeth is part of the first category and Hayden is part of the second. They may be dead, but they are not gone. And he loves them and he misses them, but they are not gone. They are just as alive as they can be, in his memories. Hayden and Elizabeth...


End file.
